Although Microsoft has repeatedly stated that Xbox Game Pass does not discourage game salesa document that the Redmond company sent regarding the Activision-Blizzard issue seems to confirm the opposite.
An excerpt from the document in question underlines how Microsoft itself admits that “Xbox Game Pass will lead to a cannibalization of Buy-to-Play sales“. The company also acknowledged that “its internal analysis demonstrates a decline in base sales of games twelve months after their addition to Xbox Game Pass”.
As mentioned earlier, these statements are in stark contrast to what Phil Spencer said in the past, with the leader of the Xbox division who has often highlighted how Xbox Game Pass had never been a brake on the sales of video games according to the traditional model. The curators of Digital Foundry had instead revealed – while not providing particularly detailed information on the matter – that the standard sales of Xbox games had dropped by 80% since Microsoft proposed the gaming on demand model that had previously imposed itself, for example, in the of TV shows.
Meanwhile, Microsoft has unveiled the first half of February lineup of Xbox Game Pass which includes Atomic Heart, Shadow Warrior 3 and others.
