Having become essential for the richness and attractiveness of its offer, the Game Pass is at the heart of the Xbox ecosystem today. However, a question remains about him: is he not led to cannibalize the sales of the titles offered in the service?
It was during a conversation between Phil Spencer, head of the Xbox division, and Sarah Bond, in charge of partnerships and the Xbox ecosystem, that we were able to learn more about Microsoft's position on this subject.
The Game Pass, the option of choice
While Game Pass recently reached a new milestone in subscribers, Microsoft's flagship service is democratizing new ways to consume video games. However, this wealth offered by the service, as fruitful as it is, still raises questions about game sales, particularly on the developer side. Here is what Phil Spencer said during the GDC:
"I want to make it clear to the people who are there only for us at Xbox that there is no one business model that is going to win."
After saying that game sales are a big part of the income statement at Xbox, Spencer added that the strength of gaming is in its ability to not rely on just one business model. Thus, Microsoft truly believes in a complementarity of the different models, whether through subscription services, retail sales or even free-to-play.
The boss of Xbox concluded by saying that his goal was not to see all users of the brand subscribe to Game Pass. The service is a source of continuous income that is not intended to crowd out other models, but rather to mix with them.
