Subscription services have made their way into the video game market model with great conviction. Initially designed for access to online services on consoles, as in the days of the original PlayStation Plus and the old Xbox Live Gold, they gradually evolved into real on-demand catalogues.\r\nIn particular, we know that Xbox Game Pass is the one most convinced of this strategy: it is a subscription that remains at the heart of the Xbox universe and which will continue to offer also in the future, as specified by Phil Spencer during the official podcast a few days ago, all the Xbox games from the day one. In addition to third parties, obviously.\r\nHowever, until the podcast we had no way of knowing how many Game Pass subscribers there were and, essentially, what consumer response was to Microsoft’s strategy, now structured on multiple levels: the Core one replaces the old Gold with a small library of games and online services; PC/Xbox Game Pass allows access to games on demand on PC/console; finally, Game Pass Ultimate unlocks both libraries, online services and the ability to play in the cloud.\r\nThe public reaction, apparently, was very good: Spencer spoke of 34 million Game Pass subscribers ( including those of Game Pass Core, the basic tier). As also highlighted by The Verge, this is a surge of +36% compared to the data that emerged previously which, two years ago, spoke of around 25 million subscribers.\r\nIn short, to date Game Pass has 34 million of subscribers. How do these numbers compare to PlayStation Plus, which is a very popular console subscription for Sony platforms? The answer, in fact, is quite good.\r\nGame Pass vs PlayStation Plus: how many subscribers do they have?\r\nCuriously, for a fiscal year now Sony has stopped disclosing the numbers of PlayStation Plus subscribers (here is the fiscal report most recent), as previously happened for each quarter. The choice was made in conjunction with price increases for the service, but we don’t know if the two things are actually connected.\r\nIn any case, as we promptly reported here, the most recent data released by Sony for the Q4 of he fiscal year 2022 (i.e. January 1 – March 31, 2023) was about 47.4 million subscribers. A number quite in line (with a very slight decline), if we go back two years as in the case of Game Pass, with that of Q4 of the 2020 fiscal year, when subscribers were 47.6 million.\r\nAt the moment there are no We know whether or not those 47.4 million subscribers increased in the last fiscal year. However, it is interesting to note that the diffusion of PlayStation is much more widespread than that of Xbox consoles, so not too distant numbers for the total subscribers to Plus and Game Pass suggest that Microsoft’s subscription manages to penetrate the market quite well too of non-console owners – be they PC users or people who play in the cloud on any supported smart device.\r\nTo summarize, then:\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\ n \r\nNumber of subscribers (most recent data)\r\nNumber of subscribers two years earlier\r\n\r\n\r\nXbox Game Pass\r\n34 million (2024 data)\r\n25 million\r \n\r\n\r\nPlayStation Plus\r\n47.4 million (Q4 FY22 figure)\r\n47.6 million\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nAlso PlayStation Plus, today, it is divided into tiers like Game Pass: the first, Essential, replaces the old subscription, offering a small selection of a few monthly games and access to online services; the second, Extra, adds to this a large library of games on demand (but not Sony exclusives from day-one); the third, Premium, adds to all this the possibility of playing some titles in the cloud, as well as a library of classics from PS1, PS2, PS3 and PSP.\r\nWe will see how the two subscriptions of the main consoles will evolve in the future, with the Microsoft’s focus is clearly oriented also and above all on its productions – while Sony has always explained that it does not consider it “sustainable” to immediately include its games in a subscription, from day one.