This generation has been a bit shaky for Microsoft, with the company selling far fewer consoles than its competition and Game Pass adoption being slower than hoped. That said, despite the negative sentiment surrounding the company’s decision to increase the price of Xbox Game Pass (while removing day-one games from its lower tiers), it seems this controversial move will likely pay off big time monetarily.
In a report by Ampere Analysis, the firm spoke on the recent changes to Game Pass as well as the Activision Blizzard acquisition, calculating what they expect these moves to mean for the service over the coming couple years.
According to the report, thanks to the simultaneous price increase / devaluing of Xbox Game Pass, subscribers will likely wind up paying up to 35% more than before – be it due to the price hike or the incentives for the service’s Ultimate tier.
In total, they expect the price increase (alongside the added draw of Call of Duty) to cause momentous growth in revenue specifically – increasing by over 200% since 2022 to $5.5 Billion a year by 2025.
Of course, these are just estimations based on analysis conducted by 3rd parties and so it should be taken with a pinch of salt. That said, assuming this does pan out the way it has been predicted, then Microsoft will have gotten away with a highly controversial move.
KitGuru says: What do you think of the analysis? Do you agree? Will Call of Duty make that big of a difference? Let us know your thoughts down below.