Does the average Joe Blow casual gamer even know what Game Pass is, I wonder? I have never seen it discussed outside fairly hardcore gaming communities/ publications.
I think part of it is this, yeah. There are a lot of game subscription services now, Playstation Now, Uplay +, EA Access, Game Pass, and I imagine most consumers who are even aware of it, don't look at the full games lineup and figure out the value.
I know if I'm thinking about subscription TV services, the reason that I end up subscribing is usually because there is a show exclusively on that service. If there is another way for me to watch I will usually not subscribe.
So in that sense, the only pathway that the average consumer might become interested in exploring gamepass might be only when there is an exclusive title that they can only play on that system. Exclusivity to the XBOX platform might be enough, because if they're pulled into the XBOX ecosystem they might explore gamepass eventually as an extension.
At the minute the XBOX platform sports no exclusives that are all that interesting to anyone that isn't already bought into their hardware. It's not 2008 and Halo and Gears of War not exciting for anyone but Halo fans, who already own Microsoft's hardware and know what gamepass is. That's not me trying to be dismissive, I like many of the titles like Gears 5, Crusader Kings and Forza, but I think those titles have hit the limits of their audience already.
An exclusive Elder Scrolls game might make something of a difference here but I think really you need those absolute must play experiences to pull people over to your services. I subscribed to amazon prime to watch The Boys for instance, and I can't watch that elsewhere. I'm not even certain that the Elder Scrolls series is on that level anymore, if you look at what folks are playing, with the exception of Sony's exclusives like God of War and TLOU, they're almost all big live service titles. Call of Duty, Fifa, Destiny, NBA20K, Fortnite, Apex Legends. To pull the lay consumers interest I think you need titles like those, and many of those are difficult to get because they thrive off of being available on as many platforms as possible, sometimes because they're on as many platforms as possible (e.g. Fortnite).
The best bet for Microsoft is probably not to try to buy their way in but to create the 'next big thing' themselves. I think that's why they're allowing studios like Rare to be very creative now, because they want that chance of viral success. Taking risks and building internal studios is probably the best path forward.
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