We finally have an idea of how much money Microsoft makes on Game Pass

Microsoft’s Game Pass service has been somewhat shrouded in secrecy regarding its financials – until now, anyway, as a document has revealed just how much money it generates a year.

• READ MORE: What the hell has happened at Activision and why should you care?

Game Pass’ revenue has been revealed as part of Microsoft’s ongoing acquisition of Activision Blizzard. Brazil’s Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), who has approved the deal, has released a document outlining its rationale – which also includes a lot of data on gaming companies.

According to the document (spotted by Tweaktown), Xbox Game Pass generated £2.6bn ($2.9bn) in the fiscal period ending January 2021 – though even this doesn’t offer the complete picture, as it only covers console revenue and PC Game Pass is not included.

Still, that revenue makes up around 18 per cent of Microsoft’s total yearly Xbox revenue at £14.7bn ($16.28bn), or almost 30 per cent of its games and service revenue £11.3bn ($12.581).

Microsoft has been inconsistent about revealing just how many subscribers Game Pass has – but went from 15 million to 18 million subscribers between August 2021 and March 2022.

Though as Eurogamer notes, it’s not exactly clear how they’ve arrived at this figure, as it could include discounted game sales through Game Pass and DLC sales from games on the service, or indeed it might not.

For context, it is revealed elsewhere in the document that Nintendo Switch Online generated £843million ($932million), and EA Play brought in £322million ($356million).

The document has been released following substantial scrutiny of the proposed Activision Blizzard merger. EU regulators are currently quizzing competitors about the impact of the deal, and if they believe Microsoft would block access to some of the publisher’s biggest titles, such as Call of Duty. Despite this scrutiny however, Microsoft CEO has stated the company is “very, very confident” that the deal will go ahead.

In other gaming news, Atlus has announced that a Persona 5 Royal cooperative card game is on the way next year.

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