Xbox first-party, third-party purchases surge by double digits, Game Pass payouts at new high

A sizable portion of Xbox's record-breaking $23 billion revenues in FY25 were driven by Xbox Game Pass, and now Microsoft gives more interesting Xbox figures from an unlikely source.

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Microsoft pulled some surprises today: First, Xbox ecosystem VP Jason Ronald confirmed new details about the upcoming next-gen Xbox, including that the console would be powered by custom NPU tech from AMD. Second, Microsoft actually revealed some Xbox numbers that we didn't know about before, which is a rare occasion.

In the recent episode of Xbox Podcast, the Xbox hardware exec seemed to take on the recent scrutiny around the subscription, including claims from ex-PlayStation boss Shawn Layden that Xbox Game Pass is unhealthy for developers, or Revenge of the Savage Planet dev asserting Game Pass may hurt indie devs in the long run.

Ronald says that transactions are up double-digits on Xbox, which could refer to purchases made on (and in) both first-party and third-party games. This would include full game sales as well as microtransactions.

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Game Pass has become a sizable revenue driver for Xbox.

Company CEO Satya Nadella said that Game Pass made nearly $5 billion in revenue in FY25, which means the service accounted for nearly 21% of Xbox's total-year revenues of $23.455 billion. Royalties are paid out to developers, so the more revenue that's pulled in the more payouts that developers get, but each contract could be substantially different than one another.

Here's what Jason Ronald said during the podcast:

"We're also seeing a really strong alignment with developers. One of the things we see is that for titles that support Xbox Play Anywhere, they're seeing more play because those games are now available on more screens so there's many more opportunities for me to play.

"When I think about Game Pass, in the past year we had record Game Pass revenue, and we had our all-time high on payouts to developers that participate in Game Pass. In addition to that, we're also seeing double-digit growth in both our first-party and third-party transactions as well.

"Whether or not you choose to subscribe to Game Pass or you choose to buy games from Xbox, it's just providing many more opportunities for developers to reach players within our community."