Microsoft had high expectations for Activision Blizzard, which it acquired for $68.7 billion in October 2023. In particular, the company expected that games such as Call of Duty and Diablo would contribute to the growth of Game Pass subscribers, but this has not happened yet. This was reported by Newsweek.
Game Pass revenue grew by 5.7% in the year to June, which was below the internal target of 11%. Due to a slowdown in the service's growth rate in 2023, this indicator was excluded from the criteria affecting Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella's salary.
According to reports, Activision's acquisition of Blizzard has not yet brought Microsoft the kind of profits the company initially expected. In particular, Microsoft planned to attract more developers to use Azure servers after the acquisition, but this did not happen.
In addition, the inability of Game Pass to increase interest in Xbox consoles has forced companies to release their games on competitors' platforms, such as the PlayStation 5. Some developers are even deciding to skip the Xbox Series X|S because of the technical problems of the S version, which requires much better optimization.