Xbox head Phil Spencer has no plans on replacing traditional game purchases with Xbox Game Pass (and PC Game Pass) any time soon.
“It’s just been a traditional part of gaming,” Spencer said to the New York Times, referring to the act of purchasing games.
“The retail market continues to be very strong and grow. So let’s make sure we offer our customers choice between subscriptions and transactions. That’s probably the only difference between us and some of the video subscriptions.“
This also explains why Microsoft always refrained from calling Game Pass “the Netflix for video games”: Xbox still allows normal game purchases alongside the subscription.
And according to Spencer, despite the rapid growth of Game Pass subscriptions, normal game purchases is still bigger.
“Transaction is bigger than subscription,” he said. “Subscription is growing faster, just because it’s relatively new.
“And with Game Pass, we were one of the first movers in that space. But the transaction business is very large. We still sell physical disks.”
In January 2021, Microsoft says the number of Game Pass subscribers have reached 18 million, and still growing. Though not as rapidly right now. Windows Central reported the Game Pass subs growth percentage fell short of their financial year 2021 target.
Game Pass is yet to be offered officially in more countries (Singapore is the only country in Southeast Asia to have official Xbox consoles sold and Game Pass subscription available), so there’s definitely more ways available to keep the subs number counting up.
But for the gamer who prefers buying and owning physical copies of their games, subscription services thankfully won’t be replacing the tried-and-true tradition.
Source: The New York Times via PC Gamer