In April 2022, of the 33.6 million subscriptions on Xbox consoles, 21.9 million were for Game Pass (excluding PC), with the remaining 11.7 million being Xbox Live Gold. The net revenue per subscription was $9.26 – just shy of the $9.99 price tag, suggesting most subscribers pay full price. By comparison, Microsoft was receiving $6.10 for each Xbox Live Gold subscription.
A bit surprising that most people pay full price. I really was under the impression that almost everyone did the 3 years gold-to-gamepass conversion and get it really cheap. But maybe the people here (or on Reddit) are not representative of all subscribers.
My 3 year conversion ends in February. Still undecided if I’ll renew at the full monthly price.
The kind of folks who read about savvy cost-saving methods on internet forums are always a vocal minority. The vast majority of users are always going to have signed up directly through the console, rather than faffing about with coupons and cheeky multi-step methods. Partially because it’s far more convenient to just set up a monthly auto-pay, and partly because not everyone has the disposable income to pay for multiple years up front, even though it would save them money down the line.
And I’m saying this as someone who uses a combination of MS Rewards, Nectar Points, a staff discount on digital coupons, ‘cashback’ rebates, and money or gift cards from answering surveys to fund my Xbox habit.
My 3 years ended a few months ago. I didn’t renew at the time because TOTK was releasing and then the conversion deal ended so I decided to do without it. I haven’t missed it. It’s a great service and definitely good value but I have lots of games in my backlog and not much time to play nowadays anyway. I think buying one game I really want to play at a time has been more enjoyable for me personally.
My conversion ended ages ago. I’m paying full price now, and I’m not complaining, it’s worth it, but if there’s a cheaper way, I’d love to hear it.
You can still do the conversion trick, it just converts at a lower rate. It’s still cheaper than paying full price.