“It’s a bit of a change of strategy,”
Microsoft wishes to bring Xbox Game Pass to the PlayStation and Nintendo platforms. During this week’s Wells Fargo TMT Summit, Xbox CFO Tim Stuart stated that the goal is to make first-party games and Game Pass available on “every screen that can play games,” including rival consoles.
“It’s a bit of a change of strategy. Not announcing anything broadly here, but our mission is to bring our first-party experiences [and] our subscription services to every screen that can play games,” Stuart said. “That means smart TVs, that means mobile devices, that means what we would have thought of as competitors in the past like PlayStation and Nintendo.”
Game Pass, along with first-party games and advertising, is a “high margin” business for Microsoft, according to Stuart. All of these are areas that Microsoft intends to significantly expand into in the future, according to Stuart. The executive added that acquiring Activision Blizzard helps Microsoft get there faster than it could on its own.
In terms of advertising, the Candy Crush mobile game series from King, which is now owned by Microsoft, is heavily embedded with ads and microtransactions.
It makes sense that Microsoft would want to do this for Game Pass on rival consoles because it would broaden the subscription service’s reach to a much larger audience. Another question is whether Sony or Nintendo would allow Game Pass on their consoles. Sony, for its part, previously blocked EA Access (now called EA Play), claiming that it was not a good value for PlayStation users.
Game Pass is a monthly subscription service that includes access to all of Microsoft’s first-party games at launch, as well as an expanding catalog of other games. Microsoft now owns the Call of Duty franchise, and titles from that franchise could appear on Game Pass in 2024.
Microsoft paid $68.7 billion for Activision Blizzard in the largest acquisition in video game history and one of the largest in technology history. As part of the agreement, Microsoft will own every ABK game and studio. Spencer asked controversial CEO Bobby Kotick to stay on until 2023, but it is unclear whether he will leave in 2024.