As we reported in our wider look at Microsoft’s financial results, Xbox earnings increased by a massive 51 percent. This was part of a $15.1B haul for the overall More Personal Computing category. While Windows and Surface are also in that category, Xbox was the star of the show through last quarter. Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass saw a 40 percent revenue increase. There were also a couple of records broken through the period; third-party title revenue topped $2 billion for the first time, while gaming revenue overhaul went over $5 billion for the first time. Of course, much of the growth came from the launch of the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S consoles. In fact, Microsoft highlights hardware sales growth of 86 percent year-on-year. During the earnings call, Nadella said the console produced “the most devices ever sold in a launch month.” We presume he meant for the Xbox brand because the PlayStation 5 has arguably sold more units than the Xbox Series consoles.
Growth
Either way, Nadella says the consoles have driven a surge in activity for connected services. For example, Xbox Live surpassed 100 million monthly active users during the last quarter. Xbox Game Pass continues to be successful and now has over 18 million subscribers. All-in-all, it seems Microsoft’s Xbox brand is in excellent shape as it moves into the newest generation. In fact, the success of the new consoles and ongoing growth of Xbox services means it becomes unimportant what rival Sony achieves. It seems it is room in the market for all major consoles to be successful. Tip of the day: Worried about your privacy in Windows 10 or want to keep different PCs linked to your Microsoft account strictly separate? We show you how to adjust your Windows 10 sync settings , including the clipboard, activity history/timeline, and themes.
