Xbox Game Pass now has 18 million subscribers. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has revealed that the service has grown by three million users since September in Microsoft’s earnings call on January 26.
Game Pass is the revolutionary service nicknamed ‘Netflix for games’, which offers users a range of 100s of games for a nominal monthly fee. It currently costs $9.99/£7.99 a month, and you can sign up here. From Halo to Overcooked 2, the full Xbox Game Pass games list is a nearly-exhaustive collection. You can check out our picks of the best Game Pass games if you’re suffering from a little analysis paralysis at the sheer amount of choice.
Nadella also confirmed that Xbox Live now has over 100 million monthly active users. Microsoft came under fire for controversially raising the price of Xbox Live earlier this week, before reversing the decision, but it doesn’t seem to have dented its popularity – likely due to the fact it is a necessary purchase to play some of the biggest esports games online.
Nadella describes the Xbox cloud system as “transforming how games are distributed, played, and viewed.” Microsoft has the most successful subscription model in gaming, and it only intends to grow bigger. In the earnings call, the company also details its plans to expand the reach of Game Pass by “bringing cloud gaming and Game Pass to iOS devices and Windows PCs over the next few months.”
Windows PCs already have access to Game Pass, so perhaps players without expensive gaming setups will be able to play Game Pass games using the cloud before too long.
The earnings call also revealed the launch of the Xbox Series X/S was the “most successful in our history, with the most devices ever sold in a launch month.” The vast popularity of the next-gen consoles may be a contributing factor to the fact that scalpers reportedly earned $30 million from next-gen eBay sales.