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Xbox Game Pass misses growth goal after hitting 25 million subscribers

There are over 25 million players on Xbox Game Pass. Unfortunately, that's not the number Microsoft was aiming for.

Ozzie Mejia

January 18, 2022 11:35 AM

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It's been an eventful day for the team at Microsoft. Beyond the obvious news of the day, the company revealed the latest numbers for the Xbox Game Pass service. The subscription service's user numbers have grown significantly in the past year, passing the 25 million subscriber mark. That all sounds good, doesn't it? Well, yes and no. It's a solid number, though not one that met company projections.

The latest subscriber numbers come courtesy of a new SEC financial filing revealed by Axios (via Engadget). While the Game Pass subscriber number of 25 million is impressive, Microsoft had originally set a growth target of 48 percent year-over-year. The company missed that goal by reaching a growth percentage of only 37 percent and that's even with the release of first party juggernaut Halo Infinite.

Of course, Xbox Game Pass user numbers stand to improve in the years ahead. Microsoft has a full lineup of Day 1 titles that vary from high-profile indie games to major AAA titles from third-party publishers. It also appears that in the wake of Tuesday's Activision Blizzard acquisition, those games may join the Game Pass ranks in the future.

We'll keep on covering Xbox Game Pass, as well as the rest of the news affecting the gaming world, here at Shacknews. Keep it here for the latest updates.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?