One of the major strengths the Xbox team highlights for Game Pass as a service is the variety of games you can play with it, and Xbox boss Phil Spencer has now confirmed just how much is spent on bringing third-party games into the service: over a billion dollars a year.”It goes back to some of our language on Game Pass in the very beginning. We have a service that is financially viable, meaning it makes money, in Game Pass,” Spencer said in an interview with Windows Central. “We’ve put a lot of money into the market, over a billion dollars a year supporting third-party games coming into Game Pass. What we see in Game Pass is a service that supports all kinds of games, from the biggest games, to the unknown indie games that you didn’t know you would love until you played it.”We’ve definitely seen the Game Pass love from indie teams. Most recently, Game Pass brought in over 100,000 players for Spirittea over its first week or so, playing a huge part in the game’s initial success as one of No More Robots’ “biggest launches to date.” Just before Spirittea’s launch game another much-anticipated indie game, Mineko’s Night Market. When we spoke to developer Meowza Games, co-founder Brent Kobayashi told us all about how “you never really imagine the possibility that one day one of the biggest platforms in games would recognize and give a game you made the chance to be showcased to their massive player base.” Meanwhile, earlier in the year Serenity Forge, the dev behind Homestead Arcana, told us all about how they see Xbox Game Pass as something that has “really revolutionized gaming in recent years” and that Game Pass is “not only here to stay, but will grow with time.”Spencer continued, adding, “If you’re an individual publisher, you really have to think about ‘how do you get everybody playing my game.’ I think a lot of the publishers are naturally drawn to making games that are big hit games, as big as possible. We want to do that as well, of course. But because we have a platform, and we have a subscription service, having people play more and stay engaged on the platform, frankly, regardless of the types of games they’re playing, is a very viable part of our strategy.” Spencer goes on to mention some of the Game Pass titles we’ve had over the last year. “If you look at things like Pentiment, Hi-Fi Rush, long-term investment in games like Grounded, all of these games have had real success for us in our subscription and in our platform. The diversity of business models allows us to invest in different kinds of content and still have financial success with that content.”The details for just how Microsoft goes about making deals to bring games to Game Pass are still a mystery. Way back in 2020, Phil Spencer said Game Pass deals are “all over the place” depending on what the developer needs. From interviews we’ve done with the developers of games which came to Game Pass in the past, it seems like some deals grow out of continued gradual conversations with the Xbox team. “We have always had an amazing relationship with Xbox,” the Homestead Arcana devs told us. “Naturally, we started talking with the Xbox team very early in Homestead Arcana’s development (before we even had a real name for the game). Over time, this conversation continued to evolve, especially with our publishing partner Skybound joining in, vouching for us and the game!” The same seems to ring true for the team behind Moonglow Bay. “It was a slow and long dynamic,” said Bunnyhug co-founder Zach Soares. “We had shown the game privately at GDC 2018 while it was in super early development… Microsoft was super into the idea but obviously we were in no position to make any arrangements yet. From then on, at every step in development, Microsoft always checked in with us, curious about how the game was coming along. Game Pass had picked up a lot of steam by the time the game was in a comfortable position and from what I remember it organically grew in conversation.” Each time, the devs mention getting much-needed support and stability from Microsoft during the process.Interestingly, Xbox CFO Tim Stuart recently said that Microsoft wants Game Pass on “every screen,” including PlayStation and Nintendo, but in that Windows Central interview, Spencer said “We have no plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo.”We’ll keep an eye out for more Game Pass news. In the meantime, you can check out our major round-up of all the upcoming Game Pass games.
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