Diablo IV will be the first game from Activision Blizzard to appear on Xbox Game Pass. Its release in the service is scheduled for March 28.
After Microsoft completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, fans assumed that its games would immediately come to the subscription service. However, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer said last October, shortly after the deal was finalized, that fans will have to wait until 2024 before games like Call of Duty start appearing on the service. That time has come, but instead of Call of Duty, fans will get Diablo IV.
Diablo IV was one of the big hits of last year, and its seasonal updates continue to give players new experiences. Transferring the game to Game Pass will open it up to a large audience of service subscribers.
As for the size of this audience, the Xbox Game Pass service currently has 34 million subscribers. That’s up 36% from the 25 million Microsoft last reported more than two years ago. Microsoft announced a new figure of 34 million subscribers in the official Xbox podcast.
Phil Spencer previously admitted that the growth of Xbox Game Pass for consoles has been slow, but the number of subscribers on PC is growing much more dynamically.
“We’ve seen incredible growth on PC … On console, I’ve seen growth slow down, mainly because at some point you’ve got everyone on console who wants to sign up,” Spencer told the Wall Street Journal.
Previously, Microsoft set an ambitious goal of reaching 100 million Xbox Game Pass subscribers by 2030. However, it is unlikely to work. Microsoft planned to increase Game Pass subscriptions by 73% for the fiscal year ending in June 2022. But in fact, the user base increased by only 28%.
Source: The Verge 1, 2
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