Microsoft Spent $80 Billion On Its Bet For Xbox Game Pass. It Did Not Work.

A new report sheds more light on the situation at Xbox that led to the big news this week that Microsoft was cutting 3,200 jobs at the gaming company, divesting from studios, and making other cutbacks to "reset" the business. Bloomberg reported that Microsoft spent "nearly $80 billion" in the past 10 years on deals to help revitalize Xbox and realize its dream for Xbox Game Pass, but those plans did not pan out the way Microsoft envisioned. Regarding the $80 billion in spending in the past decade, this came from Microsoft's blockbuster acquisitions of Activision Blizzard ($75.4 billion) and ZeniMax ($7.5 billion), as well as the purchases of developers like Ninja Theory, Obsidian, and Double Fine. Black Ops 6, the first new Call of Duty game to launch into Game Pass, reportedly missed out on $300 million in sales due to its inclusion on Game Pass.