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The Ascent, Valheim, WH40K, STALKER2 (also starts only for xbox consoles, imho for the money considering it’s only existed on PC for the last 16 years…), ARK2 are several examples of games that end up in the game pass on day of the release, but of course it’s completely coincidental that they are all XBOX exclusives, with stalker 2 also receiving a delayed PC release…
You can cite a few isolated examples where this hasn’t happened, including Rocket League, for example, but those isolated examples are far from proof that either of the two companies concerned doesn’t do that sort of thing; both do, and they do to a similar extent.
Microsoft also does timed exclusives, and that goes double for games that should be in game pass from day one if needed… while one could also say that due to game pass for games only a few weeks later (definitely knowing how often a game’s condition disappoints on release day) should lead to higher sales if the product sells enough… period of a game, there will be no semi-proof that would prejudice the possibility of a subsequent sale of that game.
