Phil Spencer: AAA games in Game Pass increase sales

Microsoft has now made it so that all their first-party AAA games will be released on Xbox Game Pass as of day one, which we've seen with Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 4, and now Xbox chief Phil Spencer has spoken about the subscription service during an interview with LevelUp at their X018 event in Mexico City.

As shared on ResetEra, Spencer said that "putting AAA games in Game Pass leads to a significant increase in sales," and adds that it's also a good way to raise awareness and word of mouth about a game.

"What I will say is when you put a game like Forza Horizon 4 which I can't stop playing on Game Pass, you instantly have more players of the game which is actually leading to a lot more sales of the game," he said. "Some people don't believe that but when State of Decay 2 launched, you saw if you looked at the NPD you saw this game selling really well the month it launched in the US: "People said well isn't everyone just going to subscribe for $10 and go play this thing?" But no, gamers find things to play based on what everyone else is playing. What's number 1 on Mixer, what's number 1 on Twitch, what are my friends playing, what are people saying on Discord, etc."

"So when these games hit something like the Game Pass with all of these players, it instantly raises the awareness/word of mouth. I think we will eventually get there (third party AAA games day one) but you know creators have to make their own business decisions. It's an option for creators and I think it's a good option, but that's up to them and they make their own decisions."

Do you agree with Spencer's comments here?