When Phil Spencer tool to stage a few years ago to reveal Xbox Game Pass, many hailed it as the revolution. A Netflix of games, they said. Fast-forward to 2025 and Game Pass is causing more harm than good. The service was supposed to change the way we play games, but it seems it did nothing of the sort.

According to a new study by industry analytics firm Newzoo, the service might not be changing player habits at all… and could actually be cannibalizing major game sales.

Speaking to the Australian Interactive Games and Entertainment Association’s Game Wise podcast, Newzoo’s Director of Market Intelligence Emmanuel “Manu” Rosier revealed that the company found no meaningful difference between how Xbox Game Pass subscribers and PlayStation players engage with games.

Something we’ve noticed, and we were a bit surprised. Despite all the efforts done by Microsoft with Game Pass – the acquisition of many studios, and the release of very high-quality games in Game Pass – we struggled to find significant, different behavior compared to players on PlayStation.

Rosier said Xbox players aren’t really playing more games or spending mreo time gaming than PlayStation players.

So we were a bit surprised that there was not like a visible ‘Game Pass effect’ on the behavior of players.

Part of Newzoo’s methodology was to only count games that a player spent more than two hours with, eliminating quick demos, trials, or Steam refund window plays. The process exposed a trend; Game Pass users try a lot of games but don’t really stick to most of them.

There is so much offering in Game Pass that if you’re not getting hooked on the game very quickly, you just go on another one, and you try another one until you find the one where you will get hooked

This sampling everything behavior might seem harmless, but Rosier said there’s a downside; AAA titles may be losing sales.

What we see clearly is a cannibalization of the sales of triple-A, premium games on Xbox through Game Pass

The most prominent example is Black Ops 6 as it sold far fewer copies on Xbox compared to previous years.

GameDiscoveryCo’s Simon Carless noted that indie and AA developers may feel this effect less, as many Game Pass subscribers weren’t buying their games in the first place. Still, his own analysis backs up the “sampling” behavior.

You do get a lot of players coming in and trying your game on Game Pass, albeit much more in a ‘sampling it’ way, compared to actual players who spent $50+ on your game. They are more likely to try it for longer.

If Newzoo’s finding are accurate then Game Pass isn’t reshaping how we play video games. It is actually reshaping how we buy games. And while that might make the service a great deal for players, it’s raising big questions about the future of video game sales, especially on Xbox.