Microsoft reveals Game Pass on consoles earnings during Brazil’s CADE probe

Microsoft recently received good news after the Brazil Administrative Council for Economic Defense, or CADE, approved its $69-billion acquisition of Activision without restrictions. Before the competition regulator came up with the decision, nonetheless, it scrutinized a handful of data provided by Microsoft. This gave it some helpful insights into the situation of Microsoft’s gaming business compared to its other competitors in the market. A particular detail shared by the tech giant is its Xbox Game Pass earnings on consoles, which hit a total of $2.9 billion in 2021. (via TweakTown)

The data covers the earnings of Microsoft from January to December 2021. Within the same period, the company revealed getting $16.28 billion for its “total Xbox revenues.” Using the provided data, according to TweakTown, it can be inferred that Xbox Game Pass composed 18% of Xbox’s revenue at that time, wherein it was also reported that Xbox Game Pass subscribers went from 15 million to 18 million between August 2021 and March 2022. 

In the document shared, it was not shown how much Sony earned within the said period, but it can be seen that it has a much bigger market share within the same category (40% – 50%), whereas Microsoft only got a 30% to 40% market share. Those numbers, however, might be greatly different now, especially since Microsoft reported in January of 2022 that it finally reached its 25 million subscriber mark.

Again, it is important to note that the figures only represented the Xbox Game Pass console version, which means Microsoft earned more than that since the company also has PC Game Pass offerings. The exact coverage of the numbers is also unclear. For instance, it was not detailed if the report included both subscribers from Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate or if it also covered the discounted prices offered by Game Pass.

Brazil’s CADE joined Saudi Arabia in approving the acquisition of Microsoft for Activitivision. Nonetheless, the deal is still under the scrutiny of other competition watchdogs around the world, including the FTC, European Commission, and UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), with the last one still performing its second phase of the investigation. Last week, it was announced that the CMA finally set the final date for publishing its final report, which will be on March 1, 2023.