Xbox Game Pass has over 30 million paying subscribers, but is that enough?

Microsoft’s video game subscription service Xbox Game Pass has officially nabbed 34 million subscribers across Xbox consoles and PC.

Revealed before official plans for Xbox’s multiplatform expansion, Xbox boss Phil Spencer revealed the rapid growth of Game Pass due to the rise of PC gaming and cloud streaming.

Via VGC, Spencer revealed the information to journalist Stephen Totillo in his newsletter Game File. While the number of 34 million subscribers was announced during a livestream podcast, Spencer confirmed afterwards that those millions are all fully paying customers.

“That’s fully paid. So those are not promotional players. Those are people, fully paid subs,” the Xbox boss explained.

With the dissolving of Xbox Live Gold to Xbox Game Pass Core, Spencer was asked if the subscriber count has been modified to include users on that cheaper subscription. Spencer replied that bringing in that conversion would add “a pretty small number” to the total amount and that most of the platform’s growth is due to other systems.

Spencer said: “When there’s a fixed number of console players on the planet you’re not going to grow Game Pass forever by shipping just on consoles. So we’re seeing really significant growth on PC, which is great, and cloud.”

With major AAA games such as Starfield and Indiana Jones and The Great Circle coming to Xbox Game Pass on launch, there is a lot of space for the service to grow in monthly subscribers. As Xbox finally gets into a steady cadence of new releases after years of rough schedules, the platform is finally in a stable place to push Game Pass into success.

Crucially, Spencer revealed that first-party exclusive games on Xbox are not coming to PlayStation, including recently rumoured ports of Gears of War and Halo. However, smaller titles that aren’t deemed “system sellers” will be spread onto other consoles.

Xbox Game Pass is available right now on Xbox One, Xbox Series, PC and mobile.