Microsoft has hinted that it's a financial success already.
It's probably the gym membership model. Developers get money for actual time played. The market of users that just play from time to time and don't really care about the 10$s is probably substantial.
I fall into this category. I only really get an urge to play every few months. And unless there is some specific game I'm interested in, I just pick something from the Gamepass catalogue, which is already pretty substantial. (it has/had great games like RDR2, GTAV, Witcher 3, Subnautica, No Mans Sky, ...)
While cancelling the subscription and then re-subscribing when needed is actually pretty smooth (re-subscribing takes just 2 button presses), I don't care enough to do it.
And all the "idle" revenue probably allows Microsoft to play decent rates to publishers, so they actually incentivized enough to put their games on the service.
It's probably the gym membership model. Developers get money for actual time played. The market of users that just play from time to time and don't really care about the 10$s is probably substantial.
I fall into this category. I only really get an urge to play every few months. And unless there is some specific game I'm interested in, I just pick something from the Gamepass catalogue, which is already pretty substantial. (it has/had great games like RDR2, GTAV, Witcher 3, Subnautica, No Mans Sky, ...)
While cancelling the subscription and then re-subscribing when needed is actually pretty smooth (re-subscribing takes just 2 button presses), I don't care enough to do it.
And all the "idle" revenue probably allows Microsoft to play decent rates to publishers, so they actually incentivized enough to put their games on the service.