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Xbox Game Pass subscriptions miss Microsoft’s target

Kagey K

Banned
The rate of growth may seem good to players, but to investors, it's always bad to miss projections. From a financial standpoint, it is not good. Growth is good, but rate of growth is what drives investment.
Investors aren’t investing in MS because of Xbox or Gamepass. They are rounding errors on the balance sheet.

Nobody is going “Gamepass missed projections I’m pulling all my money out. “
 

kyoji

Member
Man reading this forum you would think Gamepass just shrunk by 37%, not grew 37%.
Take away the Microsoft target part and people would be like 'Man 37% growth, thats not bad at all. Gamepass still pulling in the numbers' etc.

Never change some of you.
Stuart respectfully speaking i think the issue lies mainly with the 30mill false boasting without having a handle on actual data yet, the only source being take two ceo, which is wild to me. Its almost as if people dont understand what proper business etiquette is. You want to go over or under? on how many people used him to make the other number credible, like some of these people with every post show they have no idea how a real professional would go about business and that someone with his status wouldnt mistakingly ‘slip’ or divulge information like that, its wasnt his place really.
 
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Stuart360

Member
Stuart respectfully speaking i think the issue lies mainly with the 30mill false boasting without having a handle on actual data yet, the only source being take two ceo, which is wild to me. Its almost as if people dont understand what proper business etiquette is. You want to go over or under? on how many people used him to make the other number credible
And?, so the ceo was wrong, should we go hunt him down and string him up now?. Its not like the 30mil was an official number given from Microsoft.
 

Spukc

always chasing the next thrill

Subscriber growth for Microsoft’s signature gaming service, Xbox Game Pass, was slower than the company hoped for in the past year, according to a new financial filing.
Good fuck anything sub related
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
The rate of growth may seem good to players, but to investors, it's always bad to miss projections. From a financial standpoint, it is not good. Growth is good, but rate of growth is what drives investment.
These threads really boil down to some people puts a good spin and some put bad spin.

Im mean you say rate of growth drives investment , so the gamepass situation is not good right, because it missed targets?

There are positives + negatives to this report, but overall the gamepass situation is good, very good even.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Investors aren’t investing in MS because of Xbox or Gamepass. They are rounding errors on the balance sheet.

Nobody is going “Gamepass missed projections I’m pulling all my money out. “
They are literally offering the CEO of Microsoft bonuses based on Gamepass subs. Clearly it means something.

This kind of dismissal of anything numbers related is lame. Sales matter. They arent running a charity here. If they didnt matter to investors or to MS themselves, they wouldnt mention that they missed internal projections.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
These threads really boil down to some people puts a good spin and some put bad spin.

Im mean you say rate of growth drives investment , so the gamepass situation is not good right, because it missed targets?

There are positives + negatives to this report, but overall the gamepass situation is good, very good even.
The post of mine you quote literally said 37% growth is not that bad, but it's not good either. How is that different from what you just said.
 
Investors aren’t investing in MS because of Xbox or Gamepass. They are rounding errors on the balance sheet.

Nobody is going “Gamepass missed projections I’m pulling all my money out. “
Xbox and Game Pass are part of Microsoft's value, and if an entire division misses their year over year projections, it does affect part of the company's outlook. A division missing projections by 23% is not insignificant. Will the average investor pull their money out because of it? Probably not, but things like this are exactly what financial analysts look at.
 

Stuart360

Member
They are literally offering the CEO of Microsoft bonuses based on Gamepass subs. Clearly it means something.

This kind of dismissal of anything numbers related is lame. Sales matter. They arent running a charity here. If they didnt matter to investors or to MS themselves, they wouldnt mention that they missed internal projections.
They didnt hit their target, which happens often in business. Gamepass still grew by 37% though, its still a growing service, and by a pretty high percentage.

Give it a couple of weeks on here and Gamepass will be a failing service, on its last legs, Microsoft are giving away subs worldwide, hell they are paying us to sub, Microsft are leaving the console business, etc, etc, etc.

God i hate this shit at times l;ol.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Xbox and Game Pass are part of Microsoft's value, and if an entire division misses their year over year projections, it does affect part of the company's outlook. A division missing projections by 23% is not insignificant. Will the average investor pull their money out because of it? Probably not, but things like this are exactly what financial analysts look at.
I do find it funny that we are in a thread about MS's financial filing complete with a foreword from their CEO himself AND the board themselves, and people are like it doesnt mean anything. Like if this doesnt mean anything to investors then what does? lol
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
They must do it if they want to draw more attention to the service, IMHO. Otherwise it's not much different than, say, a free games website telling me to sign in to play all their games but for all I know as a complete n00b those could be 1000 versions of solitaire or spades.

That's why it's so important to advertise about the specific games in the service and treat them as their own specialties that just also happen to be available in the service. Mention the service too of course and emphasize why it's the best way to play it (if not the only way), but don't let that overpower the game itself. The game itself should be able to do most of the talking.

That'd draw a lot more interest (especially to casuals, mainstream and gamers not in the ecosystem) than just going on about the service itself.



Not only that but Sony's advertising has generally ran circles around Microsoft's/Xbox's when it comes to the style factor and general coolness. Xbox have had some good commercials for sure, especially the one with that guy from Black Panther, but they haven't done enough of spots like that style-wise.

The Disney+ tie-in commercial spots were nice but they should be doing more of stuff like that for specific tastes in foreign markets, too. The music spoof commercials are funny, but probably not what most would consider "cool". One area Microsoft really needs to work on when compared to Sony tho, are commercial spots and advertising/marketing (including tie-in marketing) for specific 1P game releases. Sony's kind of in a league of their own in that regard, there's a lot for Microsoft to still learn there.

At the moment playstation just seem to be putting more money into advertising, playstation make youtube/tv ads(which are shown a lot more frequently then xboxs) with high production values, have playstation on soccer stadiums while xbox have spurts of gamepass adverts, mini fridges and a decent social media, they just need to ramp up the scale.

I dont get quite understand why they dont, they will spend billions on new studios but are skimpy on the marketing budget.
 

Kacho

Member
Man reading this forum you would think Gamepass just shrunk by 37%, not grew 37%.
Take away the Microsoft target part and people would be like 'Man 37% growth, thats not bad at all. Gamepass still pulling in the numbers' etc.

Never change some of you.
Growth is expected. Missing projections should not be. And the latter is the more interesting takeaway here. That’s why it’s the title of the article. Why they failed to meet those projections is what should be discussed here, not “lol but growth am good.”
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
So whats your overall opinion on the game pass situation?
I mean it's all there in the post you quoted.

20 million is actually not that bad, but its up only 2 million since January when they were at 18 million.

Microsoft is continuing to attract people to its Xbox Game Pass service. The “Netflix for video games” service now has 18 million subscribers, up from the 15 million previously reported in September. Xbox Game Pass is a subscription service that offers access to a growing selection of more than 100 Xbox games for $9.99 per month.
they went from 15 to 18 million in just 3 months. Then for the next 6 months, they added just 2 million. That's not good.

I do think this is due to a VERY weak first six months for Xbox. Their biggest gamepass games were Outriders and MLB the show. Clearly not enough.

I really wanted them to go out and get Resident Evil 8. That game is pretty much the biggest game of the year so far and it wouldve been the big boost they needed right before the year ended.

It will be very interesting to see the numbers for the last three months. I am surprised they didnt mention them just to have the news sting a bit less. Flight Sim, Ascent, Hades, and Avengers are big titles that shouldve added some numbers. Ive been subbed for the last 3 months because of Hades, Ascent and now Avengers. I will definitely resub for Forza and Halo.

TLDR; they need to do better. The last three months and the next three months will be very interesting. Flight Sim, Ascent, Forza, and Halo are big games for the service, and we will see what kind of growth they get.

But I think they need to do more. They are too conservative with their day one games. Outriders and MLB are good, but RE8 is the kind of game they need to go out and get. Thats how Netflix got to where they are. They just bought everything they could and paid everyone insane amounts of money to get them all on their platform. They paid Scorsese $175 million to make a movie no one wanted to make. They paid Rian Johnson $400 million to make knives out sequels. They have paid almost half a billion for rights to Friends and Seinfeld. They spent $19 billion a year on programming. MS clearly cant at the moment, but in order to grow you need to go out and give EA, Capcom and Ubisoft $300 million for games like Battlefield, RE8, Final Fantasy, Ass Creed. At least once every quarter. Especially when their studios are not able to put out games consistently.

Their 24 studios are not making games fast enough. Forza and Halo at the tail end of the year? Is that really enough? Clearly not. For me personally, the last three months were worth it to sub, but i dont expect many people to be excited about Hades, and a flop like Avengers. I am like the only person on gaf who defends that game.
 
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Stuart360

Member
Growth is expected. Missing projections should not be. And the latter is the more interesting takeaway here. That’s why it’s the title of the article. Why they failed to meet those projections is what should be discussed here, not “lol but growth am good.”
So ignore the positives and only talk about the 'negatives'.?
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
I mean it's all there in the post you quoted.



TLDR; they need to do better. The last three months and the next three months will be very interesting. Flight Sim, Ascent, Forza, and Halo are big games for the service, and we will see what kind of growth they get.

But I think they need to do more. They are too conservative with their day one games. Outriders and MLB are good, but RE8 is the kind of game they need to go out and get. Thats how Netflix got to where they are. They just bought everything they could and paid everyone insane amounts of money to get them all on their platform. They paid Scorsese $175 million to make a movie no one wanted to make. They paid Rian Johnson $400 million to make knives out sequels. They have paid almost half a billion for rights to Friends and Seinfeld. They spent $19 billion a year on programming. MS clearly cant at the moment, but in order to grow you need to go out and give EA, Capcom and Ubisoft $300 million for games like Battlefield, RE8, Final Fantasy, Ass Creed. At least once every quarter. Especially when their studios are not able to put out games consistently.

Their 24 studios are not making games fast enough. Forza and Halo at the tail end of the year? Is that really enough? Clearly not. For me personally, the last three months were worth it to sub, but i dont expect many people to be excited about Hades, and a flop like Avengers. I am like the only person on gaf who defends that game.

I didnt quote your post, i quoted The Eradicator The Eradicator post
 

kyoji

Member
At the moment playstation just seem to be putting more money into advertising, playstation make youtube/tv ads(which are shown a lot more frequently then xboxs) with high production values, have playstation on soccer stadiums while xbox have spurts of gamepass adverts, mini fridges and a decent social media, they just need to ramp up the scale.

I dont get quite understand why they dont, they will spend billions on new studios but are skimpy on the marketing budget.
Where do u live man? Theres GP advertising literally everywhere, you couldn't hide from it if you tried. Maybe its a region issue ? Are you in one of the asia territorys or something?
 

BoxFresh123

Member
I5uxrlF.gif
 

Kagey K

Banned
They are literally offering the CEO of Microsoft bonuses based on Gamepass subs. Clearly it means something.

This kind of dismissal of anything numbers related is lame. Sales matter. They arent running a charity here. If they didnt matter to investors or to MS themselves, they wouldnt mention that they missed internal projections.
Well the stock was up .31% today and it‘s up even more after hours, so obviously investors don’t care.

Buy on rumours…. Sell on the news…. And all that.
 
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Jaybe

Member
There is a market for Game Pass and its a big market, I just think MS has convinced themselves of a number and growth rate that are unachievable. They have Satya touting 2 billion, now 3 billion gamers. However, games are not consumed like movies, TV series, and music. So many people are invested in GaaS or multiplayer games as their primary time sink, be it free to play or paid. Fortnite, FIFA, Rocket League, Destiny, Cod WZ, Apex. In general, this types won’t be signing up for Game Pass.
 

Kacho

Member
So ignore the positives and only talk about the 'negatives'.?
You’re just burying the lede if you do that. If Microsoft smashed their projections obviously this would be a very different thread but that’s not the case here.

It was a bad year overall for the industry and Xbox hardware is hard to come by so that definitely played a part in them missing their projections. Still, they managed to snag several biggish games for Game Pass which generated a decent amount of buzz. They also promote the service everywhere all the time and never let up, yet they still missed their projections. That is interesting.
 

twilo99

Member
There is a market for Game Pass and its a big market, I just think MS has convinced themselves of a number and growth rate that are unachievable. They have Satya touting 2 billion, now 3 billion gamers. However, games are not consumed like movies, TV series, and music. So many people are invested in GaaS or multiplayer games as their primary time sink, be it free to play or paid. Fortnite, FIFA, Rocket League, Destiny, Cod WZ, Apex. In general, this types won’t be signing up for Game Pass.

Yeah, they really need something like those games you mentioned to be gamepass exclusive. That's why I think not doing a some sort of battle royal take on Halo is a missed opportunity.
 

Stuart360

Member
It didn’t grow 37%. Growth was up 37%. Huge difference.

But you know, “never change” and all that.
Man reading this forum you would think Gamepass just shrunk by 37%, not grew 37%.
Take away the Microsoft target part and people would be like 'Man 37% growth, thats not bad at all. Gamepass still pulling in the numbers' etc.

Never change some of you.
I know that. Point is there was still growth, and very decent growth too.

Simnple facts is Microsoft under predicted the previous year, and over predicted this year. They probably got a bit bullish after the previous years results.
I'm sure next years target will be nore realistic, and they will probably end up beating that target i would bet.
 

Sosokrates

Report me if I continue to console war
Where do u live man? Theres GP advertising literally everywhere, you couldn't hide from it if you tried. Maybe its a region issue ? Are you in one of the asia territorys or something?

Im in UK, and yes gamepass has ramped up youtube advertising.
But i still think they need more. I see playstation ads on youtube and Instagram significantly more.

I think it was jim ryan interview or some documentry I watched that said sony implemented advertising techniques they learned from there music and walkman division to playstation and it worked.
Playstation make ads which really sell players on the emotion, here are few examples.





Xbox also do these emotional ads but where im at i dont see them as much, the singing one was just released YouTube I think, and they hope it goes viral.





So xbox ads are as good but they just need to show them more. Make sure every gamer and potential gamer has xbox+gamepass in the brain more then playstation.
 
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Shmunter

Member
So Sony giving away free trial of PS+ mean that no one is paying for it? False growth?

Majority of subscribers are either paying full price or have paid for 1-3 years of gold and converted it to GP. Its illogical that a free or $1 trial would grow GP numbers year on year, just like its illogical that a PS+ trial would grow subscribers paying nothing year on year.
Considering these are businesses and not charities, anything free is a customer acquisition strategy, retention is the goal.
 

Dr Bass

Member
I know that. Point is there was still growth, and very decent growth too.

Simnple facts is Microsoft under predicted the previous year, and over predicted this year. They probably got a bit bullish after the previous years results.
I'm sure next years target will be nore realistic, and they will probably end up beating that target i would bet.
I don’t think you knew that. What you quoted from yourself, yet again, is not what happened. But whatever. I just think people should at least get their points straight.
 

Swift_Star

Banned
As someone who is heavily invested in the Xbox ecosystem I still don’t get the appeal of the service. What games have dropped that make me want to sub or lead to significant growth?

Marvel’s Avengers? Nah
Ascent? Nope
The Medium? Hell no
Baldur’s Gate? Lol

Even with Halo and FH5 on horizon it’s like who cares? Just buy the one or two games that interest you and play them. I’m not subbing to Game Pass to play Starfield for example. I’ll just buy it.
It's appealing to young people and those new to gaming. That's all. The problem Microsoft faces is called brand recognition.
 
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BoxFresh123

Member
Im in UK, and yes gamepass has ramped up youtube advertising.
But i still think they need more. I see playstation ads on youtube and Instagram significantly more.

I think it was jim ryan interview or some documentry I watched that said sony implemented advertising techniques they learned from there music and walkman division to playstation and it worked.
Playstation make ads which really sell players on the emotion, here are few examples.





Xbox also do these emotional ads but where im at i dont see them as much, the singing one was just released YouTube I think, and they hope it goes viral.





So xbox ads are as good but they just need to show them more. Make sure every gamer and potential gamer has xbox+gamepass in the brain more then playstation.


Anecdotally (UK also) Playstation advertising/visibility far outstrips Xbox advertising here from what I see.
 

kyliethicc

Member
I know that. Point is there was still growth, and very decent growth too.

Simnple facts is Microsoft under predicted the previous year, and over predicted this year. They probably got a bit bullish after the previous years results.
I'm sure next years target will be nore realistic, and they will probably end up beating that target i would bet.

Here's just a random made up example:

If a service grows from 10 million subs to 11 million, that's 10% growth.
If that service then grows from 11 million subs to 13 million, that's 18% growth.
But going from 10% growth to 18% allows one to say "growth was up 80%."

"Growth is up 80%" sounds a LOT better than "18% growth."

Its very easy for these corporations' PR departments to spin numbers.
 
This is not how investors think. When a company sets projections in their guidance, they ARE, in fact, expected to meet or exceed those projections. If they had predicted 100% growth, and delivered 99%, you'd have the big money investors wondering where the 1% went.
That doesn’t change what I said. 37% growth is impressive, regardless of projections, particularly on the back of outperforming projections in the previous period. Investors might be a little disappointed sure that they didn’t absolutely coin it in, but they are also generally realistic and will look at the trajectory.

Microsoft investors have very little to complain about or even be concerned about.

Plus not totally sure why you think they are relevant to Gamepass’ success or failure? My interjection anyway was more aimed at people who seemed to think 37% growth makes Gamepass ‘unsustainable’… Which is patently ridiculous.
 

Lognor

Banned
It's appealing to young people and those new to gaming. That's all. The problem Microsoft faces is called brand recognition.
Nope. I'm neither of those things and it's appealing to me. Same with many of my friends. Don't make shit up... unless you have some type of source?
 

Stuart360

Member
Here's just a random made up example:

If a service grows from 10 million subs to 11 million, that's 10% growth.
If that service then grows from 11 million subs to 13 million, that's 18% growth.
But going from 10% growth to 18% allows one to say "growth was up 80%."

"Growth is up 80%" sounds a LOT better than "18% growth."

Its very easy for these corporations' PR departments to spin numbers.
But its year on year growth. I dont really see how the 37% could be twisted in the way you suggest. And what would be the point of giving themselves growth targets, and admitting they didnt hit them, if they were 'fixing' the numbers anyway?.

Look i'm just going to wait until the official 30mil announcement is given to us, as i'm guessing 30mil is the next milestone they will hit before giving us official numbers again. And a lot of doom and gloomers will look silly.
 

Stuart360

Member
I really can't understand why people are expecting Halo to make GP more desirable... Its MP will be f2p. And Forza? LoL no, racing are niche games. The Bethesda games, TES and starfield particularly are the ones I expect making GP more desirable.
There will be a lot of new subs for Halo SP and Forza, make no mistake about that.
Whether they continue to sub after playing them, who knows. Some will stick, some will drop until the next big game hits.
 

Swift_Star

Banned
There will be a lot of new subs for Halo SP and Forza, make no mistake about that.
Whether they continue to sub after playing them, who knows. Some will stick, some will drop until the next big game hits.
I really don't think the number will be as high as you think it's going to be. During the One era, halo and Forza weren't making numbers for MS, why would it be different now. Halo mp is f2p and Forza is niche. I expect numbers to get a significant boost after TES and Starfield.
 
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Lognor

Banned
There will be a lot of new subs for Halo SP and Forza, make no mistake about that.
Whether they continue to sub after playing them, who knows. Some will stick, some will drop until the next big game hits.
Yeah forza is absolutely huge. That poster is clueless. If you look at the most played games on game pass forza is always at the top. Forza is THE racing video game. Even if you want to declare racing as a niche genre, forza is the biggest amongst them.
 

Shmunter

Member
But its year on year growth. I dont really see how the 37% could be twisted in the way you suggest. And what would be the point of giving themselves growth targets, and admitting they didnt hit them, if they were 'fixing' the numbers anyway?.

Look i'm just going to wait until the official 30mil announcement is given to us, as i'm guessing 30mil is the next milestone they will hit before giving us official numbers again. And a lot of doom and gloomers will look silly.
Surface level gazing is for the layman’s. We can do better on a serious gamers forum.

There is a momentum quotient in things like this. As a generic example, a huge spike at some point within the year gets flattened on a trend line when growth is projected out into the future.

The covid lockdown effect cannot be put aside and assume 34% is achievable in the following years.
 
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Lognor

Banned
I really don't think the number will be as high as you think it's going to be. During the One era, halo and Forza weren't making numbers for MS, why would it be different now. Halo mp is f2p and Forza is niche. I expect numbers to get a significant boost after TES and Starfield.
VWJeTDk.jpg
Really showing your ass,huh? Forza horizon 4 is currently the most popular game pass game and it is consistently at or near the top.

Forza horizoniche, right?
 

Stuart360

Member
I really don't think the number will be as high as you think it's going to be. During the One era, halo and Forza weren't making numbers for MS, why would it be different now. Halo mp is f2p and Forza is niche. I expect numbers to get a significant boost after TES and Starfield.
Forza Horizon games sold huge, Google it. And Halo not making big numbers?, what?
 

Lognor

Banned
Forza Horizon games sold huge, Google it. And Halo not making big numbers?, what?
Yeah, he's clueless. Single player halo is also massive. November and December sign-ups for gp will be massive. Might not meet Microsoft's own internal projections (lol), but we'll see a ton of new users. Well, we might not actually see because ms isn't too keen to share numbers
 

Stuart360

Member
Yeah, he's clueless. Single player halo is also massive. November and December sign-ups for gp will be massive. Might not meet Microsoft's own internal projections (lol), but we'll see a ton of new users. Well, we might not actually see because ms isn't too keen to share numbers
Had to check the post history, yeah first page is all anti Xbox posts lol.
He even had a go a bit above at someone about Xbox buying up studios and how bad it is, then in the 'Sony has 18bil to spend on aqusitions' thread, he's gloating about how much money Sony have.

He wont be here long.
 

Reallink

Member
Not surprising, 100-150 million console buyers are not active players. Games could be as free and accessible as internet shitposts and the user base would not be radically higher than it is now. The hobby is niche (in terms of cultural impact) by necessity. The mental energy, learning curve, and time investments are far too great to come anywhere close to the passive entertainment services (TV/Film/Music) they try to compare themselves to. Their best case total saturation point for active subscribers at any one time is probably around 30 million. They'd be unlikely to surpass that even if they had 150 million Series consoles in homes, in addition to countless PC's, and Game Streaming on toasters/refrigerators.
 
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Stuart360

Member
Not surprising, 100-150 million console buyers are not active players. Games could be as free and accessible as internet shitposts and the user base would not be radically higher than it is now. The hobby is niche (in terms of cultural impact) by necessity, the mental energy and time investments are far too great to come anywhere close to the passive entertainment numbers they like to quote from TV/Film/Music. Their best case total saturation point for active subscribers at any one time is probably around 30 million. They'd be unlikely to surpass that even if they had 150 million Series consoles in homes, in addition to countless PC's, and Game Streaming on toasters/refrigerators.
Yeah i agree partly with what you are saying. Gaming may generate more money than movies and tv, but thats mainly because of the prices involved. Movies and tv are still more popular and widespread than gaming.
I dont agree about Gamepass though. I'll be surprised if they are not at 50mil users by the end of the gen.
 

elliot5

Member
Yeah i agree partly with what you are saying. Gaming may generate more money than movies and tv, but thats mainly because of the prices involved. Movies and tv are still more popular and widespread than gaming.
I dont agree about Gamepass though. I'll be surprised if they are not at 50mil users by the end of the gen.
I think they'll be at 50 mil users by the end of 2023 tbh.
 

Robb

Gold Member
That sucks for MS.

Would be nice if this means they’ll keep pushing out even better deals for the service though. I haven’t bought a single game since I got my Series X, but I’ve played a ton. Love it.

As soon as this model becomes successful though I imagine things will get worse pretty fast.
 
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