Phil Spencer has revealed some statistics on the Xbox community, including a few humble-brags about how popular Xbox Game Pass has grown to become. The subscription service has climbed to more than 10 million subscribers since its launch in the fall of 2017, while Xbox Live has 90 million active users.
That means one of roughly every nine Xbox players subscribes to Microsoft's big bet, while it's also roughly ten times more popular than PlayStation's rival service, PS Now. "After joining Game Pass people play 40% more games," Spencer said, "and more than 90% of members have played a game they wouldn’t have tried without Game Pass." These stats are those Microsoft seems most proud of, and for good reason. They read well whether the company is pitching to more potential subscribers or the studios and publishers putting their games in the library.
It wasn't just all boastful stats from Spencer. The center of his feature was to highlight how gamers have changed their behavior since the pandemic began.
"Since March, Xbox Game Pass members have added over 23 million friends on Xbox Live, which is a 70% growth in friendship rate," Spencer revealed. He added that multiplayer gaming is up by 130% between March and April 2020.
Speaking as he often does about the communal aspect of gaming, Spencer concluded, "I’ve always believed gaming has a unique power to bring us together, and I’m proud of how our artform is introducing this unique power to more people during a time of need. I have no doubt that we’ll come through this experience stronger than ever."
Game Pass will play a major role in Xbox's future long after the pandemic has been resolved, so it's interesting to see how it changes and grows as we approach a new console generation.
