This is a significant stat considering the service is only a paid subscription and has 10 million people steaming games within it. Although, Microsoft didn’t specify how it’d count a stream, and whether it includes the users from a $1 trial of the Game Pass it offers.
Booming Xbox Cloud Gaming
Noting that many are interested in online gaming but had unsupported hardware, Microsoft launched its cloud gaming service – Xbox Cloud Gaming back in November 2019. This was first released to Android, then iOS and PC, and eventually to Xbox consoles. This led many to access the wide range of Xbox libraries on several devices, and play wherever they want. Microsoft invested heavily in this and even released a custom Xbox Series X hardware to make the gaming from its cloud much better. All these catered Microsoft 7 million more subscribers since the last year, now standing at 25 million counts overall. And now, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella said their Xbox Cloud Gaming is streamed by over 10 million people! This is a pretty fantastic figure, considering it’s a part of paid subscription worth $14.99/month, and competition from other cloud gaming OEMs like Nvidia, PlayStation, and Google. Although, it’s unknown how Microsoft calculates a game streamed by a user. This is like, how many current subscribers are included in the streamed games and how much playtime Microsoft considers for a stream to be counted as valid. We should also note that Microsoft offers to subscribe to the Gams Pass Ultimate tier for $1 initially, and then cancel it to enjoy the whole month. Even with all these stats, Microsoft’s number of 10 million streaming users is great. The company said their Xbox hardware sales are up by 14%, seeing the best growth in a decade. Yet, it’s worried that Chinese production shutdowns due to COVID-19 may affect future hardware sales.
