Xbox Exec Talks Game Pass And Suggests Developer Enthusiasm Hasn't Wavered For It

It's been an ambitious year for Xbox Game Pass in 2025, with so many incredible games joining the service over the past 11 months, and it's about to deliver another amazing slate of titles in 2026 as well.

In fact, Microsoft is promising 75+ "day one" games on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate per-year moving forward, which is a massive step up on what we've been getting to date - it apparently represents a 50% increase altogether.

With that in mind, they're going to need a lot of developers and publishers to remain on board. Fortunately it sounds like that's the case, as explained by the Xbox GM of Portfolio and Programmes (Chris Charla) in a recent interview.

Chris, who's known primarily for his work with the ID@Xbox team, advised in the interview with GameReactor that "enthusiasm for game developers for Game Pass has never gone down", and the fact that many are returning for their second, third or even seventh games on the service shows that Team Xbox is doing something right.

GameReactor: "So, what's the feedback you're getting from the studios joining you at ID@Xbox and the possibility to be [on Game Pass]? Did it change at all in the past year? Also, we got new prices as of late, do you think this is going to have an impact on them, or how do they feel about that?"

Chris: "Well, I think the enthusiasm for game developers for Game Pass has never gone down, right? And, you know, when we have developers who are coming back to us and doing a second game, a third game, a seventh game, you know, on Game Pass, you know, that extrinsically tells us that we're doing something right there. And, of course, when we see players enjoying and loving all the amazing titles there are on Game Pass, we feel really good."

Now, to be fair, we have heard pockets of disgruntlement about Xbox Game Pass over the years and how it's potentially a bad deal for developers and even players, but we've also heard how it's been a massive benefit for other developers and publishers, particularly in the indie space. It's very true that some publishers have repeatedly put their titles on Game Pass as "day one" launches, to the point where basically everything in their catalogue is on there!

And again, that figure of 75+ "day one" games per-year suggests that plenty of developers are on board with Xbox Game Pass going into 2026, which is set to benefit subscribers in a major way. We've already seen multiple Game of the Year candidates join XGP in 2025 alone, and we're expecting many more to land on the service next year.

Is it worth the money now that prices have gone up? That's another question entirely, but you can bet that Team Xbox will be working extremely hard to bring as many quality titles to Xbox Game Pass throughout the next calendar year.