Microsoft was never precise regarding how much money they make from Game Pass. We learned earlier this year that the service has roughly 25 million subscribers. Still, the various subscription models (including trials) make it hard to pinpoint an estimation of how much it generates over a year. Fortunately for those curious about it, Brazilian regulators have shared the 2021 service revenue for consoles alongside other services like Nintendo Online and EA Play.
If you have ever wondered how much Xbox Game Pass for consoles generates, it might be interesting to know that in 2021 alone, the gaming subscription service made $2.9 billion in revenue. That's according to the CADE's report document, which also covers the regulator's decision to approve Microsoft's Activision Blizzard acquisition. Besides the Game Pass figures, the table also shows that Nintendo's online services made $932 million and EA Play about $356 million. Unfortunately, the document does not include specific figures for PlayStation's online services revenue.
It's public knowledge that the Xbox brand generated $16.28 billion in 2021, of which $12.58 billion came from games and services only. Based on these numbers, we can see that the Xbox Game Pass for consoles represents 17.8% of the Xbox total revenue, as well as 23% of the games and services segment. Note that these numbers are just for 2021, back when Xbox Game Pass had between 15 and 18 million subscribers. Now at 25 million, according to the latest shared numbers, Xbox Game Pass revenue (consoles only) may have even surpassed the $4 billion mark.
The table shows the market share for each of these services. Sony gaming subscriptions are on top, covering 40-50% of the market, followed by Microsoft with 30-40%. Nintendo is in third place with a 10-20% share, and EA is last with a 0-10% share.
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KitGuru says: The interesting part here is that this figure only accounts for console subscriptions, so Xbox Game Pass for PC is delivering a bump too, but we don't have specific numbers for that fork of the service. Did you think Game Pass was generating this much revenue for Microsoft?