Recently exposed court documents not only leaked Microsoft's console plans and game lineup in recent years, but also involved some "surprising" views of Xbox President Phil Spencer. Spencer has said that if the GamePass subscription service does not grow enough by 2027, Microsoft will exit the gaming business.
access:
Microsoft China Official Mall-Homepage
FTC lawyer James Weingarten showed the following internal Xbox Game Pass slide in front of Spencer and asked him whether he agreed with this prediction: Xbox Game Pass subscription service members will exceed 100 million between fiscal year 2029 and fiscal year 2030, mainly due to the surge in users in the PC and cloud markets.
Spencer made it clear that if this prediction comes true, Microsoft will exit the gaming business. Microsoft needs the light green and blue parts of the graph (PC and cloud) to grow significantly by 2027, and if not, then it will exit the gaming business.
"I don't believe this is what the Xbox business will look like in the future," he said. "This was a presentation from our devices organization to the gaming leadership team, so this is how our teams building the hardware see the future of the business."
I can definitely say that if we don't make more progress in the console space, we will exit the gaming industry. I don't believe we would still be in this business if this turned out to be the case.
I hope that by 2030, the majority of our customers will be from our own hardware. So, when you ask me if I agree with this chart the light green and blue have to be bigger, earlier. I would say by FY '26, '27 we should be at this level, otherwise we will have to make different decisions about the business. "
Microsoft predicts that the sales of Xbox Series consoles will reach 56 million-59 million units by 2027, which is about the same number as Xbox One