Xbox Game Pass: the 34 million subscribers include the Core tier, service subscribers have dropped

After the doubts that emerged last night about the number of subscribers to Xbox Game PassMicrosoft has confirmed through various publications, including The Verge and Window Central, that i 34 million subscribers mentioned last night they also include those in the Core tieror the new subscription that replaced the old Live Gold.

For obvious reasons, this diminishes what was initially thought to be a large growth compared to the 25 million Game Pass subscribers confirmed by the company in January 2022. At the time Live Gold subscribers were approximately 11.7 million (according to the documents that emerged in the lawsuit against the FTC), for an approximate total of 35.7 million users subscribed to Xbox services, compared to the current 34 million.

In short, looking at the total number of subscribers to Microsoft's gaming services, the numbers not only have not increased in the last two years, but a slight decline was also recorded. Which is clearly not a positive outcome, but in Spencer's words to The Verge the services “are at a place where it's a sustainable and profitable business for us.”

PC Game Pass has grown, the number of Core subscribers is small

Furthermore, thanks to an Axios interview, Spencer clarified that the 34 million Game Pass only counts “full price” subscribersdismantling some conspiracy theories that claim that the numbers are inflated by those who take advantage of the 1 euro trial period or other particularly advantageous promotions.

In the same interview, Spencer also added that Game Pass Core subscribers are “a rather small number” and that significant growth has been seen in the PC Game Pass and cloud space.

“When there is a fixed number of console gamers on the planet, you can't grow Game Pass forever just on consoles,” he explained. “So we are seeing truly significant growth on PCwhich is great, and on the cloud.”

This means that over the last two years a substantial percentage of Live Gold/Core subscribers have decided to move to Xbox Game Pass, with the overall numbers for the base, PC and Ultimate tiers possibly being around or just above 30 million. Clearly this is just a guess, in the absence of really precise numbers on the distribution of paying users between the various subscription levels.