Microsoft recently released its financial report, showing that its Game Pass subscription service continues to grow, but in fact it has not achieved Microsoft's internal targets for two consecutive years.
According to Axios, a new financial filing submitted by Microsoft provides annual target information related to CEO Nadella and other key Microsoft executives' compensation.
To achieve this goal, Microsoft Xbox Game Pass user growth rate must reach 72.88%. However, although the number of users continues to grow, the increase is only 28.07%.
This is the second time Game Pass failed to achieve internal goals. In fiscal 2021, Microsoft's internal target is 47.79%, but the final growth rate is 37.48%.
It is worth mentioning that in fiscal 2020, Microsoft achieved the internal target of Game Pass growth rate (71%), with the final result being 85.75%.
Earlier this week, Xbox president Spencer explained that Game Pass’s growth has slowed down on consoles. "I saw a slowdown in growth, mainly because to some extent you have reached all host users who want to subscribe to it."
analyst Benji-Sales believes that driving Game Pass growth mainly depends on Microsoft's first-party games. If higher growth is achieved, more exclusive masterpieces must be available. However, the reality is that there are fewer first-party masterpieces in Xbox in 2022, and the situation will be much better next year, including "Red Xia Island", "Forza", "Starry Sky", "Minecraft: Legend", "Age of Empires 2", and "Age of Empires 4". Although it is not sure that it will help Game Pass grow by more than 70%, it will be much better than in 2022 at least.
Other factor is that Xbox Series X|S sales are less than 20 million, and PC is currently the fastest growing place for Game Pass. After all, the base of host installation needs to grow to achieve the goal.
Recently Spencer also hinted that Xbox consoles, gaming and subscription services may increase prices in the future.
