Kotaku⁠73%

Game Pass Is Reportedly Back Down To 30 Million Subscribers ⁠63%

By Ethan Gach⁠65%

7/6/2026, 6:15:05 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Negativity Bias, Anchoring Bias, and Confirmation Bias, with Post Hoc (False Cause) as the most egregious example at 47.8% saturation with 184 hits. Analysis detected 1,298 faulty-reasoning hits from 385 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 57.9% and a BS Rank of ⁠63% (8,191 of 21,886 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 62.60% of the article peer group.

Xbox has remained secretive about how many subscribers Game Pass actually has ever since growth of the Netflix-like subscription began to stall. 
Now, according to The Wall Street Journal, the service is down to just 30 million monthly paying customers, a drop of 4 million from 2024. 
“The company had projected Game Pass subscriptions would reach around 77 million this year, according to a document revealed during legal proceedings related to the Activision acquisition,” reads the new report. 
“It currently has about 30 million, a person familiar with the matter said.” 
That 77 million figure comes from internal Microsoft documents leaked back during the 2023 FTC trial over its acquisition of Activision Blizzard that revealed the tech giant once had hopes that Game Pass would reach over 100 million subscribers by 2030. 
That ambitious figure would seemingly be built on the back of a number of studio acquisitions and big game releases, as well as smart deals with third-party publishers. 
But by 2024, the company had only reached 34 million subscribers, according to remarks from then-Xbox President Sarah Bond. 
Since that time, Game Pass has seen multiple price increases and the addition of new Call of Duty entries to the day-and-date library. 
But things came to a head last fall when Microsoft raised the price of Game Pass Ultimate to $30 a month ahead of the launch of Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. 
The game ended up being poorly received, however, and churn from the price hike led Game Pass subscriptions to decline overall. 
Xbox chief strategy officer Matthew Ball said earlier this year that the move cost the service “millions of subscribers.” 
While Microsoft hasn’t shared any specific figures in recent years, a report by Bloomberg claimed that the day-and-date launch of 2024's Black Ops 6 on Game Pass cost Microsoft roughly $300 million in lost revenue, suggesting the calculus was not panning out even before the price hikes. 
As a result, one of new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma's first moves after succeeding Phil Spencer was to reduce the monthly price of Game Pass and pull new Call of Duty releases out of the service's library at launch. 
Even if that stops the bleeding, it seems like Game Pass has hit a ceiling. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 30.6%Ethan Gach: 4.0%Kotaku: 4.4%Confirmation Bias30.6%This article: 30.9%Ethan Gach: 2.3%Kotaku: 1.6%Anchoring Bias30.9%This article: 9.9%Ethan Gach: 3.3%Kotaku: 4.0%Availability Heuristic9.9%This article: 10.6%Ethan Gach: 1.4%Kotaku: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic10.6%This article: 12.2%Ethan Gach: 1.6%Kotaku: 1.0%Hindsight Bias12.2%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 2.1%Kotaku: 1.7%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 7.4%Kotaku: 5.8%Framing Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 1.8%Kotaku: 1.1%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 6.0%Ethan Gach: 1.5%Kotaku: 1.1%Status Quo Bias6.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.1%Kotaku: 0.4%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 7.3%Ethan Gach: 4.3%Kotaku: 2.9%Optimism Bias7.3%This article: 9.6%Ethan Gach: 4.2%Kotaku: 3.4%Pessimism Bias9.6%This article: 35.3%Ethan Gach: 12.9%Kotaku: 13.5%Negativity Bias35.3%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 1.8%Kotaku: 2.0%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 15.8%Ethan Gach: 1.6%Kotaku: 1.5%Fundamental Attribution Error15.8%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.1%Kotaku: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 2.0%Kotaku: 1.3%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.3%Kotaku: 0.3%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 5.1%Kotaku: 3.6%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.1%Kotaku: 0.3%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.3%Kotaku: 0.1%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 18.7%Ethan Gach: 2.6%Kotaku: 2.4%Recency Bias18.7%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.8%Kotaku: 0.6%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.1%Kotaku: 0.0%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 1.7%Kotaku: 1.3%Ad Hominem0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.4%Kotaku: 0.6%Straw Man0.0%This article: 27.0%Ethan Gach: 3.2%Kotaku: 2.6%Appeal to Authority27.0%This article: 3.9%Ethan Gach: 2.2%Kotaku: 2.3%False Dilemma3.9%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 1.1%Kotaku: 1.0%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.4%Kotaku: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 7.3%Kotaku: 9.4%Hasty Generalization0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.5%Kotaku: 0.3%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.9%Kotaku: 1.1%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 4.9%Ethan Gach: 6.7%Kotaku: 5.8%Appeal to Emotion4.9%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.7%Kotaku: 0.9%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 47.8%Ethan Gach: 3.2%Kotaku: 2.4%Post Hoc (False Cause)47.8%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.1%Kotaku: 0.3%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.5%Kotaku: 0.7%Burden of Proof0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.3%Kotaku: 0.2%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 1.0%Kotaku: 0.5%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 3.4%Ethan Gach: 2.1%Kotaku: 4.3%Anecdotal3.4%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.1%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 24.9%Ethan Gach: 2.3%Kotaku: 2.0%Ambiguity (Equivocation)24.9%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.2%Kotaku: 0.1%Middle Ground0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.3%Kotaku: 0.5%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.2%Kotaku: 0.2%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.1%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 23.6%Ethan Gach: 5.0%Kotaku: 2.8%Unattributed Quote23.6%This article: 8.1%Ethan Gach: 2.1%Kotaku: 1.6%Quote-first Misdirection8.1%This article: 6.5%Ethan Gach: 13.3%Kotaku: 15.3%Biased Writer Voice6.5%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 2.0%Kotaku: 2.4%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.6%Politically Left Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 0.0%Kotaku: 0.1%Politically Right Leaning Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Ethan Gach: 2.5%Kotaku: 3.5%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

385 words analyzed.

Speakers

5speakers39%attributed speech236writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 10 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageThe Wall Street Journal • 25 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 13 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 41 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 28 words • 0.0% coverageSarah Bond • 19 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 21 words • 0.0% coverageMatthew Ball • 19 words • 0.0% coverageBloomberg • 47 words • 100.0% coverageAsha Sharma • 39 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 100.0% coverage
Selected voice

Bloomberg

100%flagged-word coverage
47 attributed words32% of attributed speech100% writer coverage
0%50.0%100.0%Unattributed Quote+81.4 ptsWriter: 18.6%Bloomberg: 100.0%100.0%Quote-first Misdirection-13.1 ptsWriter: 13.1%Bloomberg: 0.0%0.0%Biased Writer Voice-10.6 ptsWriter: 10.6%Bloomberg: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.