Microsoft and Sony’s subscription service (as well as others using a similar model) failed to show significant expansion in 2023, although the Redmond-based company continues to see great potential.

In 2022, Xbox Game Pass failed to meet its growth targets, and since then, for example, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said that Microsoft’s gaming business may have a 10-15% ceiling for Game Pass. In 2022, it had 25 million subscribers, and more recently Microsoft had 34, but that included Xbox Live Gold members (the service has been renamed Xbox Game Pass Core), so the number of people using the traditional service, which offers a catalog of games, has stagnated or even declined.

As for Sony, there has been little talk of PlayStation Plus subscribers. The company simply sweeps negative results under the rug (as evidenced by the fact that we can only speculate about PlayStation VR2 sales). It’s no wonder that Mat Piscatella, an analyst at Circana (formerly NPD Group), tweeted a shocking result: compared to April 2023, only ONE percent more money was spent on subscription services in North America in April this year (and last year the increase was 2%…). So interest in subscriptions is not growing at a higher rate…

And it's still stalled. March 2024 non-mobile video game subscription spending was only up 1% vs the April 2023 figures that got me to post the below last year. https://t.co/O0WQhQX023

— Mat Piscatella (@MatPiscatella) May 7, 2024

So the cash flow hasn’t increased significantly, which could also be a red flag because Game Pass and PlayStation Plus have both seen significant price increases. So if they’re charging more for the service, they’re probably getting that revenue from possibly FEWER subscribers! And more and more publishers have this service (for example, EA Play from Electronic Arts, but it’s included in the more expensive, Ultimate version of Xbox Game Pass), but it seems that people don’t have bottomless wallets.

So they’re starting to hit a wall, and something will change: maybe we’ll start to see more games leaving the system rather than joining it.

Source:  WCCFTech