As part of seeking regulatory greenlights for its proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, Microsoft is having to hand over details of its gaming division. Regulators and rivals are concerned the merger will cause competition issues in gaming. Much of the contention comes from the fact Microsoft could make franchises like Call or Duty, Candy Crush, Warcraft, and Diablo exclusive to Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft denies it will do this, stating it makes more economic sense to maintain the cross-platform availability of those brands.
Cash Flow
To help appease Brazil’s regulatory body CADE, Microsoft has given Xbox Game Pass revenue from subscriptions. As you might guess, it is a lot! It seems subscription revenue was $2.9 billion for the fiscal period ending January 2021. Doing the math based on the price of subscriptions, Game Pass had between 18 and 19 million customers at that time. Also at the time, the service was accounting for 18% of all Microsoft’s gaming revenue. Importantly, this only includes Game Pass users on Xbox, ignoring the million using the service on PC. In other words, Xbox Game Pass is doing better than even these numbers suggest. Furthermore, this data is from early 2021. Game Pass has continued to grow since then, so the numbers are likely even more impressive today. Tip of the day: Though many VPN providers have their own apps, you can in many cases connect to a VPN in Windows without any third-party software. This is ideal if you have a self-hosted VPN or if you’re using a PC with restricted permissions. In our tutorial, we’re showing you how to connect to a VPN in Windows.
