The person in charge of Xbox independent games supports XGP! The cooperation scale hits a record high

　　Faced with criticism from many well-known figures in the industry for Xbox Game Pass, Chris Chala, head of Microsoft ID@Xbox project, recently publicly defended the subscription service. This service, which has brought significant success to Microsoft, has recently been questioned by the outside world for being accused of having a negative impact on the gaming industry. Chara uses data to describe the positive impact of the platform on developers.

　　Although there is a controversy, 2025 is still a rewarding year for the Xbox gaming platform. In the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, XGP set a new record for single-quarter revenue since its launch in 2017, exceeding US$5 billion for the first time. In the same year, many masterpieces such as "Dark Plan 33" and "The Hollow Knight: The Song of Silk" were first released, further consolidating the attractiveness of the service.

In an interview with Eurogamer, Chara, who was in charge of the release of Xbox independent games, refuted the claim that "Game Pass harms the industry", revealing that Microsoft has "signed agreements with more than 150 partners" to introduce games. He stressed that more than 50 development teams worked with the service for the first time in 2025, making this year the "most investment year in Game Pass has ever been." This statement is in sharp contrast to the previous criticism of former B-sen B-sen leader Peter Hines - Hines once pointed out that subscription services may "cannot reasonably reflect the value of development results."

Recent voices opposing Microsoft subscription services are not an isolated case. Former PlayStation head Sean Leden bluntly stated that Game Pass is "harmful to the industry" and compared it with Spotify, believing that this model will lead to users reducing individual purchases. According to its analysis, introducing similar models in the gaming industry will have the same effect, which will squeeze the profit margin of developers.

Although Chara did not specify how Microsoft paid the studio through Game Pass, he clearly emphasized that the platform has positive significance for the industry and said that Xbox will "continue to engage with hundreds of partners every year" to enrich the game library. In addition to business expansion, Xbox Game Pass is currently testing cloud gaming capabilities at full hierarchy, and will provide all subscribers with more flexible gaming methods in the future.