Microsoft is ready to pay $100-300 million for the release of games from external studios in Game Pass
Thanks to the leaked documents in the FTC v. Microsoft case, new interesting details about the economics of Microsoft Game Pass are revealed. For example, the amount of money the company is willing to pay to partners for the release of games in Game Pass, writes Axios.
It became known from internal correspondence in 2022 that Microsoft was ready to pay $100 million for the release of Assassin’s Creed Mirage on Game Pass on the day of release. Microsoft estimated the amount that EA could have asked for Star Wars Jedi Survivor at $300 million.
It is interesting that in 2022, Microsoft severely underestimated the potential of Baldur’s Gate III and believed that they could get the game on Game Pass on the day of release with only $5 million.
But Grand Theft Auto V is the opposite. Microsoft was ready to spend $12-15 million a month to get the game on Game Pass. By the way, GTA V did appear in the service catalog in July 2023.
The latest official figures released by Microsoft for Game Pass are 25 million subscribers in January 2022 and $2.9 billion in revenue in fiscal 2021. Since then, the service has been launched in additional countries, including partially in Ukraine. In addition, it is believed that the recent release of Starfield has led to a significant increase in the number of Game Pass users.