A recent Bloomberg report reveals how Microsoft secures third-party games for Xbox Game Pass. The tech giant spends a staggering $1 billion each year to keep Game Pass stocked with titles from external developers.

Xbox Game Pass started as an intriguing video game service, but it has since evolved into a highly recommended subscription that offers hours of entertainment. With both first-party and third-party games, the entire Game Pass catalog now includes more than 400 titles. However, maintaining such a vast library is costly, with Microsoft investing billions each year.

Bloomberg published a comprehensive report that discusses various topics related to Xbox’s gaming division, including Game Pass. The article mentions that Microsoft allocates massive sums annually to secure deals with developers and publishers, bringing their third-party games to the well-known subscription service.

As stated in the report, “Microsoft spends up to $1 billion per year”. The company is also said to offer “millions in upfront fees” to smaller publishers for their titles. However, the largest sums are used to convince developers to launch their new games on Game Pass, with Microsoft sometimes fully funding development costs.

“For the developers, it’s risk-free. The game will be made, they get all the retail benefits, and we get the opportunity to have it on launch day,” they explain. Phil Spencer also noted that while they experiment with various models, they prefer to pay upfront. “We’re open to experimenting with different partners because we don’t think we’ve figured everything out. When we started, we had a usage-based model. Most partners said, ‘We get it, but we don’t trust it, so just pay us upfront,'” he explains.

Source: 3djuegos