Game subscription analysis--Take Xbox Game Pass as an example

Abstract

Game subscription is a huge innovation made by Microsoft and an important development trend of the game industry in the future. This paper focuses on analyzing game subscription and mainly focus on Xbox Game Pass (XGP). This paper analyze the XGP’s operational mode and benefit. And future prospect of XGP. Through the research, XGP is benefit for both Microsoft themselves, game producers and users. Through the calculation of software hardware ratio, it can be concluded that Microsoft can definitely make money under the XGP model. XGP also helps game companies to provide financial support and reduce the cost and risk of promotion. XGP also reduces the decision cost for users. So this model is benefit for both Microsoft itself, game producers and users. In order to attract users to buy the XGP, the most important way is to increase the games that the users can play by the XGP. So Microsoft started a big acquisition spree in 2018, buying a lot of game companies, including, Recently, acquired Activision Blizzard. Game subscription is also the future of the game industry, and many other game companies have adopted the same strategy, such as SONY's PlayStation Plus (PS Plus), EA launched a subscription service in 2018: Origin Access Premier (now EA PlayPro).And perhaps more companies will join the game subscription in the future.