Xbox Game Pass Focuses On “Player Engagement” More Than Numbers, Phil Spencer Says

Head of Xbox Phil Spencer recently claimed that Xbox uses player engagement as a metric of platform growth rather than the number of sales or purchases. During IGN’s recent Unlocked interview, transcribed by Pure Xbox, Phil Spencer gave some valuable insights regarding Xbox’s growth over the last two decades, and what he aspires for the platform moving forward.

According to Phil Spencer, “The number one metric that we can look at to see if our business is actually growing is, are people playing more on the platform?”

He further goes on to say, “There’s nothing about review scores, there’s nothing about retail sales of consoles or retail sales of games. The number one sign that our platform is healthy and growing is actually engagement on the platform from players, and that is what Xbox Game Pass is growing. So, our business continues to grow and continues to be profitable at Xbox, and we’re very proud of that”

This comes as no surprise considering Xbox’s current market strategy. Its dominance within the realm of cloud gaming makes it clear that Xbox isn’t solely worried about console sales. Of course, it’s also much more profitable for them to adopt this approach, as Microsoft apparently doesn’t net a lot of profits from selling Xbox consoles.

Xbox Game Pass continues to grow, with Microsoft targeting at least one new first party release for it every three months, with more and more third-party developers jumping aboard for releasing their games on day 1 as well.