Tucked away in Microsoft’s official press release announcing its acquisition of Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax and all of its studios and IPs, was the reveal of a new record for Xbox Game Pass subscribers. Game Pass, across PC and Xbox, now has over 15 million members. This is up from 10 million in April, a whopping 50% increase. The news is hardly surprising. Xbox Game Pass has unquestionably been the best deal in gaming for a while, with Microsoft making it harder and harder for casual players to resist by investing in content - particularly new game launches, convincing EA to come on board, and even adding cloud streaming at no additional charge.
But we also can’t ignore how hard Microsoft has been pushing the service over the past several months. New users can still get in at an introductory price of just $1 per month to try out the service. When Game Pass made the transition to PC, Microsoft offered PC users curious about the service a discounted $5 monthly subscription, an offer that’s no longer available now that PC Game Pass is out of beta. Game Pass Ultimate, which combines both the PC and Xbox services, as well as Live Gold, itself remains a great deal for just $15, only $5 more than a standard subscription in a single-platform Game Pass. Bringing Bethesda’s extensive library to Game Pass will no doubt help expand the audience further, especially now that we know that future games from Bethesda’s various studios will be available day one on Game Pass.
