Xbox Game Pass failed to hit subscriber targets because most people don't play lots of games, says analyst, and going indie won't save it: "I don't see a solution"

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.

There was a time not too long ago when Game Pass was seen as the future of Microsoft's gaming brand, if not the industry as a whole, but as we wait for the rebranded Xbox to emerge from its devastating reset, it's an open question whether subscription services for games are really a sustainable business model.

IGN recently published a comprehensive writeup of the conception, boom, and recent downswings of Xbox Game Pass, and the site, one point, argued in favor of Xbox embracing smaller, more easily digested indie games instead of behemoth AAA releases. The logic is that subscribers could feel like they're getting their money's worth if they're playing more than a couple of games per year, which is a lot easier to achieve when the games available to them don't all take dozens of hours to beat.