Xbox Game Pass has officially surpassed 25 million subscribers, marking a sizable increase of around 7 million subscribers since January 2021.
Microsoft tends to keep Game Pass numbers close to its chest, but shared this latest 25 million milestone as part of today’s groundbreaking news of its intent to acquire Activision Blizzard.
Phil Spencer, the recently promoted CEO of Microsoft Gaming, noted the figure alongside news that, should the acquisition close, the company will bring “as many Activision Blizzard Games as we can” to the already prolific subscription library. Those additions will include both new titles and games from Activision Blizzard’s back-catalog.
Elaborating on the acquisition’s Game Pass impact in a conference call earlier today, Spencer noted that bringing major companies and their sizable portfolios into Game Pass has a sort of “flywheel” effect on the service, making the service more enticing for would-be subscribers and external game publishers alike.
“As the creative range on our platform continues to expand, more players are attracted to the service, and the growing scale of the customer base makes the platform more attractive for additional publishers, and so on,” remarked Spencer.
“And then, as [Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella] pointed out, when you think about potential opportunities, like, say, offering Diablo, Call of Duty or Overwatch via cloud streaming to anyone on any device, you can see just how exciting this deal really is.”