Xbox has revealed that its Game Pass service now boasts 34 million subscribers, highlighting this achievement during the announcement of Diablo 4 as the first game from Activision Blizzard to be available on Game Pass. Sarah Bond, Xbox’s president, expressed excitement about the milestone, stating, “now the 34 million Game Pass members can all enjoy the fantastic experience of Diablo 4.”
In further discussions with Stephen Totilo for the Game File newsletter, Xbox’s chief Phil Spencer clarified the nature of these subscriptions. He emphasized that the figure represents fully paid subscribers, excluding those on free trials or benefiting from promotional offers. “That’s fully paid,” Spencer stated. “So those are not promotional players. Those are people, fully paid subs.”
When asked about the potential inflation of subscriber numbers following the rebranding of Xbox Live Gold to Xbox Game Pass Core, which might have automatically converted Xbox Live Gold members to Game Pass subscribers, Spencer minimized the impact of this transition.
He suggested that the increase from Xbox Live Gold to Game Pass subscribers was “a pretty small number” and highlighted the growth areas contributing to the overall increase. “When there’s a fixed number of console players on the planet you’re not going to grow Game Pass forever by shipping just on consoles,” he remarked. “So we’re seeing really significant growth on PC, which is great, and cloud.”
This announcement comes at a time when Sony has ceased disclosing the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers, a decision Push Square suggested might be related to a service price increase in September 2023. Despite Sony’s previous fiscal year reports indicating around 50 million subscribers, recent reports have not updated these figures, only mentioning a “slight year-on-year decrease in the number of PlayStation Plus subscribers.”
