{"id":362478,"date":"2026-07-07T16:31:05","date_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/?p=362478"},"modified":"2026-07-07T16:31:05","modified_gmt":"2026-07-07T11:01:05","slug":"xbox-ceo-asha-sharma-admits-microsofts-big-bet-on-game-pass-has-failed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ebiztoday.news\/index.php\/2026\/07\/07\/xbox-ceo-asha-sharma-admits-microsofts-big-bet-on-game-pass-has-failed\/","title":{"rendered":"Xbox CEO Asha Sharma Admits Microsoft’s Big Bet on Game Pass Has Failed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has admitted Game Pass has didn’t grow as Microsoft had expected, with reports indicating it’s tens of tens of millions of subscribers wanting previous targets.<\/p>\n

The Wall Street Journal<\/a> said that Microsoft had expected Game Pass subscriptions to hit around 77 million this yr, but it surely currently has only about 30 million. As revealed through the FTC vs Microsoft trial of 2023, Microsoft had hoped for 100 million subscribers by 2030, which seems most unlikely at this stage.<\/p>\n

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Internal Xbox Game Pass slide revealed as a part of the FTC trial with Microsoft. Image credit: Wccftech<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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This week, Microsoft announced 3,200 staff at Xbox are set to lose their jobs this financial yr, with 1,600 going now and the remainder to follow \u2014 leaving hundreds of employees with an anxious wait that might drag out for months.<\/p>\n

As a part of the cuts, Microsoft has jettisoned 4 studios which were brought in to bolster Game Pass with recent games under the Phil Spencer era, with one other studio in negotiations to be sold or shut down.<\/p>\n

In an email to staff, Sharma admitted Microsoft\u2019s gaming strategy had failed, and a key a part of that failure needed to do with Game Pass.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur business today shouldn’t be healthy,\u201d Sharma said. \u201cWe’re operating at margins which are 3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses. We entered Gen 9 with a smaller install base and the next cost structure. To grow, we bet on Game Pass, multi-platform, and a broader portfolio of content. While those businesses have created meaningful value, they didn’t grow on the pace we expected. As that happened, our core business weakened, and we added more teams, more investment, and more time, hoping for a greater end result. And now the industry is facing essentially the most severe hardware crisis in its history. We must reset Xbox.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire point of Game Pass is that it provides enormous value to subscribers via an expanding library of games, boosted by big day one launches from Xbox studios. Microsoft invested huge sums in acquiring content for Game Pass, including an eye-watering $69 billion on Activision Blizzard. Spencer hoped to spice up Game Pass subscribers by launching recent Call of Duty games day one. But subscriber numbers have didn’t grow, with console numbers particularly hitting a wall.<\/p>\n