they don't have the income from retail games any-more, if you're an Xbox player, you almost certainly have gamepass. which means you aren't paying for a single game they produce. A decade ago a new Halo would come out and that would be 100 million in revenue day one. Now it's nothing.
They have to pay for the entire cost of development of multiple game studios. I'll highlight the ones for relevance, these are studios they have to pay salaries for hundreds of people for every month, as well as all the other costs of development, and then get no payday. Gamepass has to (but doesn't) pay for all of these: Bethesda Game Studios, ZeniMax Online Studios, id Software, Arkane Studios, Machine Games, Tango Gameworks, Alpha Dog Games, Roundhouse Studios, Blizzard, Treyarch, Infinity Ward, High Moon Studios, Toys for Bob, Raven Software, Sledgehammer Games, Beenox, Radical Entertainment, Rare, 343 Industries, The Coalition, Mojang. Ninja Theory, Playground Games, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, Obsidian Entertainment, InXile Entertainment, Double Fine
Then they have to licence all the other games on gamepass, all the third party stuff on there currently that microsoft does not own. Again, this means that they don't make any money from game sales of those products, and also have to pay for them. Gamepass subscriptions currently probably covers this cost just about

Currently Gamepass can only exist thanks to microsoft azure and office 365. those to microsoft services pay for gamepass game development. This is why no other company does this, only microsoft can front the money from their other businesses.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Gamepass subscriptions currently probably covers this cost just about

Why wouldn't it scale? They're not stupid.

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-game-pass-has-over-30-million-subscribers-according-to-linkedin

30m last year, over $10 per month on average, $350m+ a month, plus game sales which, contrary to what you've said, still exist. New titles result in more console sales and more subscribers. They haven't shifted to this model to make less money.

They aren't losing money.

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I want to be extremely clear about this, game sales functionally do not exist. We are not going to be discussing the validity of if xbox gamers purchasing Xbox games. We know they are not.

New titles are not resulting in more console sales and subscribers, as those have flatlined.

They have indeed shifted to this model to make less money so that they can be the one making money in a decade. It's extremely short-sighted to claim otherwise.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

25m.> 30m subscribers is not flatlining. Where is a source about console sales and game sales stopping? "We are not going to be..." Uhh why?

https://www.windowscentral.com/gaming/xbox/xbox-series-xors-consoles-set-a-new-record-for-units-sold-in-december-2023-per-circana

Console sales higher than ever in December. BG3 just came out, which sells alongside COD: https://exputer.com/news/games/baldurs-gate-3-top-selling-xbox/

[–] echo64@lemmy.world 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Update: The LinkedIn profile in question removed the references to the "30 million" milestone. Microsoft reiterated to us in a statement that 25 million remains the last official milestone.

literally from your article.

from another ign article

“We’re seeing slowing adoption of Xbox Game Pass even though Microsoft will claim otherwise thanks to the repositioning of Xbox Live Gold as Xbox Game Pass Core,” McWhirter says. “Our forecast estimates total Xbox Game Pass subscriptions (excluding Core/Live Gold) to be at 33.3 million at the end of 2023, which represents subscriber growth of just 13% - down from 15% in 2022. Piscatella notes too on X/Twitter that subscription services specifically aren’t growing as fast as they used to.

[–] ABCDE@lemmy.world 0 points 9 months ago

33.3m, higher than I thought, and that's not including Core. 13% is great growth.