Last month, Microsoft announced that it was dramatically lowering the price of Xbox Game Pass, as the company’s gaming division tries to win back fans under the leadership of new CEO Asha Sharma. It seems the move is already starting to pay off – at least, that’s how Sharma herself seems to feel according to a leaked internal memo.
“Growth slowed down and subscriber loss accelerated after the pricing and SKU changes last year,” Sharma said in a note to Xbox employees last week, as reported by The Verge (paid article link). That would be when the price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate reached a whopping $30 per month, which very much seemed to be the breaking point for many players.
Since then, the price has gone down to $23 per month, though that no longer gets you day one access to new Call of Duty games, and it’s still up from the previous $20 monthly fee. Still, Sharma writes that “since our price reduction we have seen acquisitions grow and retention improve, which is a good first step.”
Xbox certainly seems keen to improve the general vibe of the brand, which had gotten pretty dismal by the end of the era that Phil Spencer oversaw. Certainly, it doesn’t seem to be making any effort to crack down on these internal memo leaks, which largely present a positive – but vague – plan for improvements at the division.
Sharma says in the memo that there’s more work to be done, and Xbox will not solve its problems “in one moment or one launch.” Instead, the team will “have to outwork the problem in front of us in our path to restore durable growth.” Again, if you’re looking for concrete plans and details about what that work will look like, well… you won’t find it here.
She says that Xbox needs to make “hard choices about what we build, where we invest, and what kind of company we need to be going forward,” all of which sounds a little ominous given the 15,000 employees Microsoft laid off over the past year.
For those of us on the outside of Microsoft, our first real look at what Xbox has in store under its new leadership will come as part of the Summer Game Fest schedule, which kicks off next week. Xbox has a lot to prove to win back fans, and I think some impressive looks at new games will do a lot more for the brand than whatever a statement like “outwork the problem” means.
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