Microsoft reveals Game Pass revenue on consoles during CADE survey in Brazil

Microsoft recently received good news after Brazil's Administrative Council for Economic Defence (CADE) approved its $69 billion acquisition of Activision without restrictions. However, before the competition regulator made its decision, it carefully reviewed the small amount of data provided by Microsoft. This gave it some useful insights into how Microsoft's gaming business compares to other competitors in the market. One particular detail the tech giant shared was its Xbox Game Pass earnings on consoles, which totaled $2.9 billion in 2021. (Via TweakTown)

The data covers Microsoft's earnings from January to December 2021. During the same period, the company revealed getting $16.28 billion in "total Xbox revenue." According to TweakTown, using the data provided, it can be deduced that Xbox Game Pass accounted for 18 percent of Xbox revenue at the time, which also reported an increase in Xbox Game Pass subscribers from 15 million to 18 million between August 2021 and March 2022.

In the document shared, it is not shown how much money Sony made during the said period, but it can be seen that it has a larger market share in its category (40-50 percent), while Microsoft only gets 30 to 40 percent of the market. However, these numbers could be very different now, especially since Microsoft reported in January 2022 that it had finally reached the 25 million user mark.

Again, it's important to note that these numbers represent only the Xbox Game Pass console version, which means Microsoft is gaining more than that, as the company also has a PC Game Pass offering. The exact coverage of these numbers is also unclear. For example, there are no details on whether the report includes subscribers from Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, or whether it also includes the discounted prices offered by Game Pass.

Brazil's CADE joined Saudi Arabia in approving Microsoft's acquisition of Activitivision. Nonetheless, the deal remains under scrutiny by other competition watchdogs around the world, including the Federal Trade Commission, the European Commission and the U.K.'s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), the last of which is still conducting a second phase of its investigation. It was announced last week that the CMA finalized the date for the publication of its final report, which is March 1, 2023.