We know for the first time the importance taken by the Xbox Game Pass against its competitors. Microsoft’s service unsurprisingly dominates the market.
Since its inception, and especially since the arrival of day one exclusive games in the subscription, Xbox Game Pass has become one of the biggest talking points in the video game industry. This service, which provides access to a large catalog of quality games, has quickly become very popular among players.
As Sony prepares to respond with a new subscription offer, we now have a better idea of the weight of Xbox Game Pass against its competitors.
60% of the market for Xbox Game Pass
In a comparison between the various video game services in the West carried out by Ampere Analysis, a firm specializing in the analysis of the media, sports and video game market, we can discover that Microsoft has managed to capture 60% of the market with the Xbox Game Pass.
It’s still a small slice of overall gaming. But Microsoft has a commanding lead in the “Netflix for Games” race. And that’s before it gets hold of Activision. (Slide by @PiersHR ) pic.twitter.com/5wdSCESkNU
—Dave Lee (@DaveLeeFT) March 23, 2022
In second position, we find Apple Arcade with 9% of the market, then Google Play Pass, PlayStation Now and EA Play tied with 7% market share each. Keep in mind that we are only talking about services that allow access to a catalog of video games. Services such as Xbox Live Gold or PlayStation Plus are therefore not included.
It should also be noted that this is a representation of the market in value (in dollars) and not in users. However, subscriptions are not all sold at the same price by the different publishers. The EA Play service is marketed at 3.99 euros per month while Ubisoft Plus is at 14.99 euros per month.
A ratio of 1 to 8 between Sony and Microsoft
Still, the most impressive is the difference between Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Now. These are two services offered by console manufacturers, and the PlayStation brand is much more popular around the world than the Xbox brand. Still, there’s almost a one-to-ten ratio between Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation Now results according to Ampere.
We understand better why Sony is thinking about a new strategy by merging PlayStation Plus and PlayStation Now into a new subscription. It will be interesting to compare the state of the market in one year, to note the progress made, or not, by PlayStation against Xbox in this segment.
To follow us, we invite you to download our Android and iOS application. You can read our articles, files, and watch our latest YouTube videos.