What just happened? Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass is proving lucrative for the company. In its recent earnings call, the Redmond firm revealed that more than 10 million people subscribe to the service, which has reached "record levels of engagement."

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed Xbox Game Pass had hit the milestone in the previous quarter. The Covid-19 lockdown, which has seen record levels of people buying and playing games, doubtlessly helped the service reach that 10 million figure, but it’s the excellent library of games that has attracted so many subscribers.

Xbox owners first got Game Pass back in 2017, which included some titles for the PC, with the platform-specific Game Pass for PC version launching in beta form last year. The former is available for $9.99 per month, while the latter is $4.99 p/m, though there’s an introductory offer of $1 per month. You can also combine both services with Xbox Live Gold for $14.99 p/m.

Despite launching three years earlier and having around 700 more games than the Xbox Game Pass, Sony’s PlayStation Now service, which can only be accessed via streaming on PC, reached just 1 million subscribers last October.

In addition to the games being downloadable, Microsoft’s Game Pass offers some great titles, including every first-party Xbox game, including Gears 5, on the day it's released. PC subscribers can also enjoy the likes of Metro Exodus, Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, and the just-released Gears Tactics, which is topping Steam’s best-seller list.

We saw record engagement in gaming this quarter:
• Xbox Live has nearly 90 million monthly active users
• Xbox Game Pass has more than 10 million subscribers
• Project xCloud has 100s of thousands of active users in preview across 7 countries, with more coming

— Frank X. Shaw (@fxshaw) April 29, 2020

Microsoft also revealed Xbox Live now has nearly 90 million active users, and its Project xCloud game streaming service, which will eventually be free for Game Pass subscribers, reached hundreds of thousands active users in preview across seven countries.