Not PS+ Nor Game Pass; Apple Arcade Is The King Of Video Game Subscriptions

In case you thought PlayStation or Xbox were making a killing off their respective video game subscriptions, you just might have left Apple Arcade out of the equation. The US-based tech tycoon has allegedly struck a new milestone with its video game-specific subscription model, thereby outclassing its Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation+ counterparts by a substantial margin. 

The scoop comes from iMore who recently sat down with Miles Jacobson — studio director at Sports Interactive — to talk about the occasion Football Manager Touch 2023’s launch. Sports Interactive’s latest new IP has seemingly made its way onto Apple Arcade and in light of this, Miles has revealed how much of an audience he’s expecting to reach via Apple’s front-running video game subscription service. 

The Rundown: 

• In a recently hosted interview with one of the developers of Football Manager Touch 2023, the studio director—Miles Jacobson— has inadvertently revealed how much of a subscriber count is Apple Arcade truly packing.
• According to the football-centric simulator’s developer, Apple Arcade sports a 9-figure subscriber count, which means the total number of million subscribed to the subscription service is north of 100 million.
• The lackluster details do not highlight the specifics here, however. This nine-figure milestone does not confirm whether these are active subscribers we’re talking about or the grand sum of people who ever joined Apple Arcade in the subscription’s entire lifetime.
• If there’s any semblance of truth to this scenario, then Apple Arcade has left the likes of Xbox Game Pass and PlayStation+ way back in the dust. 

We still encourage taking all this information in with a grain of salt, since it’s Miles’ word against everybody else’s. Here’s what the Football Manager Touch 2022 representative had to say in the interview with iMore.

So we had a new perspective on looking at the way that we look at making games for platforms like the Apple platforms and the consoles that we’re working on. But we also have a team of people in America who are getting the game and going, ‘What the hell are we meant to do?’ And everyone in Europe knows the game really well. We all know that when we boot up the game, you know what we need to do. But one of the things we’re most proud of, and it’s a weird thing to be proud of, is actually the onboarding and the way that we’re going to be able to reach out to this new audience via Apple Arcade. I’m told nine-figure subscribers, I have no idea if those numbers are right or not.”

If you take a close, hard look at that last sentence, Miles expresses his joy in launching his game in a space that is absolutely loaded to the brim with people. “I’m told nine-figure subscribers, I have no idea if those numbers are right or not,” says the Football Manager Touch 2022 developer.

This surprisingly blows the competition right out of the water as there are other big fish in this industry too. Primarily, we have PlayStation’s PS+ subscription service right alongside Xbox Game Pass and Nintendo Online.

All three of these offer their unique subscription models and pricing, with Game Pass being an especially stand-out prospect for its value proposition. However, when it comes to these, PS+ leads the affair with about 45.4 million subscribers, as revealed by Statista.

However, drawing a comprehensive comparison between the power players of this industry is Derek Strickland from TweakTown. The analyst has taken to Twitter to post the following, thereby illustrating the massive gap in subscriber counts among the most prominent gaming subscriptions in the world right now. 

Reportedly, Apple likes to stay quiet when it boils down to revealing company statistics or anything of the like that concerns user count. With that said, Miles Jacobson has given us an interesting insight to look into and a massive goal for Apple Arcade’s competitors to achieve. 

For context, Apple Arcade launched in September 2019. It is available on a host of Apple devices and comprises a catalog of games to enjoy upon paying a monthly fee of $4.99 per month.

Other than that, Apple Arcade can also be availed of as part of Apple One—an all-in-one bundle of Apple’s subscription services that includes Apple Music, Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and dedicated storage for iCloud. Its monthly plan costs about $15.