Microsoft Spends Up To $50m On Xbox Game Pass Partnerships, Says Former Manager

“Deals ranging from $50k to over $50m”

by Ben Kerry Yesterday, 5:15pm

Microsoft’s own first-party titles are a big draw with Xbox Game Pass — particularly these days with this many studios under its belt — but that’s not to say that big partnerships with third party teams aren’t also needed. In fact, some of these partnerships are pretty darn huge, with deals going all the way up to $50m to get certain titles onto the service.

After unfortunately losing their job in Microsoft’s latest round of layoffs, former business development manager at Xbox Iain MacIntyre has updated their LinkedIn page with details of this particular job role – revealing some interesting figures about Xbox’s third-party Game Pass strategy.

MacIntyre says that he’s “negotiated 500+ deals ranging from $50k to over $50m” to get “indie hits and AAA titles for Game Pass”. MacIntyre doesn’t detail how Microsoft spends all of that money and the exact nature of these deals, but clearly, the company has spent a lot of money securing content for Xbox Game Pass over the years.

We’ve heard in the past that some Game Pass partnerships are more straight forward deals, while in other instances, Microsoft will actually fund the game – with it then launching day one into the service. We’d assume that some of the bigger deals include actual development funding from Xbox, but ultimately, we don’t know the exact makeup of these partnerships – and probably never will.

Anyway, this is an interesting little tidbit as it’s not often we hear about actual figures relating to Xbox Game Pass partnerships. We’d be curious to know how much is being spent these days, with Microsoft having a much stronger first-party output on the service in recent months.

What do you make of these XGP numbers? Talk to us about ’em down in the comments.

Ben is a News Writer at Pure Xbox, and is a fan of action, racing and straight-up shootin’ in any Xbox game he can get his hands on. When he’s not clutching an Xbox controller like his life depends on it, Ben spends his time listening to music that’s far too old for him, watching football on the telly and probably eating somewhere.

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