Daily Briefing: Thursday 30th September

Xbox Game Pass pay have passed 30m subscribers

For all they like to talk about pretty much anything else, Microsoft are surprisingly stingy when it comes to giving things player counts and active subscriber numbers. That's why we have to turn to third-parties and hope they let something slip, which may have just been the case with Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick.

• Zelnick and Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently took part in a session with The Wrap where they discussed the rise and future of the games industry. At one point, Zelnick turned to Spencer and said "you've got about 30 million subscribers, something like that?" Spencer didn't deny that was the case, but was quick to emphasise that "the last public number we announced was 18 million." It's not quite clear whether Zelnick let something slip or, as a well-documented subscription model sceptic, he was just kind of messing with Spencer by suggesting a number he knew was far higher than the real one. Watch this space.

Kratos' voice actor says his injury delayed God of War: Ragnarök

Christopher Judge, who played Kratos in 2018's God of War, made the surprise announcement earlier this week that it was his fault God of War: Ragnarök was delayed out of 2021. Judge took to Twitter to say "I need to be forthcoming. This has been approved by no one. To the beloved fandom, Ragnarök was delayed because of me." Judge elaborated that he had a series of surgeries in and around August 2019 (including back surgery, knee surgery, and a double hip replacement) and Sony Santa Monica "waited for me to rehab."

• Judge was full of praise for Sony Santa Monica for the way they handled the news, never saying a word about the delay or what caused it. He stated that "studios are assholes, but this company from top to bottom, should give us hope." He was a surprising admission from Judge, and it's not like anyone can blame him for being injured. God of War creative director Cory Barlog previously took full responsibility for the delay after staff were targeted for harassment. Judge himself briefly touches on this when he says "what they did for the crew is way more that I can’t talk about, but I’ve said to all involved, it’s the classiest thing that I’ve ever heard about in this business."

Genshin Impact brings in $2bn in first year

And that's just from the mobile version. According to new data from analytics site Sensor Tower, the F2P open-world fantasy waifu 'em up was the third biggest mobile game in terms of revenue across both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store. It was surpassed only be Tencent's Honour of Kings and PUBG Mobile. As might be expected, China is the game's biggest market, generating $577m in revenue on iOS alone.

• But, if you take China out of consideration, then Genshin Impact becomes the highest grossest mobile game in the world, ahead of even Pokémon  GO and Roblox. Sensor Tower's data also shows that the game hasn't lost any of its launch momentum. They reported back in March that Genshin Impact had surpassed $1bn in player spending in its first six months, and now it's $2bn after one year. Not too shabby for a game currently getting review bombed into oblivion due to poor communication and player upset.