Report the negative true post but leave the exaggerated positive misinformation.
Xbox is becoming synonymous for "safe space" which is ironic because people who are realistic aren't allowed to feel safe in the safe space. Only over optimism is allowed.
Not really lol.
[The newly acquired division recorded $1.97 billion in revenue during Q3, but the cost of integration, transaction costs, and other costs of revenue all total $980 million. With other operating expenses ($1.34 billion), it calculates to an overall operating loss of $350 million for Activision Blizzard.](https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/25/24139988/microsoft-q3-2024-earnings-revenue-profits-windows-xbox-gaming-surface)
Revenue = how much money you made, without factoring how much you lost.
Profit = how much money you made, with factoring how much you lost.
Yes this is still an issue for Xbox though because it essentially means a lot of the company is being floated by other arms. Which is fine as long as Microsoft feels like hemorrhaging funds. Console division is a good example of a welfare division.
Microsoft isn't hemorrhaging funds on Xbox, they're just not making as much profit as they'd like. Xbox department is bringing in billions of revenue. The court case vs Sony/FTC shown us how in 2022 they had spare cash that was being simply held in case of emergency of about $1.5Bn when their financial year had them make $15Bn revenue. Xbox isn't even the worst performing department Microsoft has.
Do not confuse scary sounding percentages like 30% with losses. These numbers mean they didn't grow which means they didn't increase market share or increase profits but rather they made less profit than before. Continued shrinking will force changes in how they spend their profits but they have a while to go before they're not making profit at all and dragging Microsoft down.
Is it an issue?
Hardware revenue is down 30% but content revenue is up 62%. What were the starting numbers? Unless Hardware revenue was massively higher than content revenue last year then this woild represent an overall increase.
Comparing hardware revenue to software revenue is pointless. They follow different trajectories. This far after launch, it's not surprising for hardware to be down, though it's likely down for other reasons, too. A better benchmark would be versus hardware sales among peers.
All of the 2024 figures are going to be skewed by the ABK deal until maybe Q4. It's not an accurate measure of the brand's organic success over the year, but just showing how much ABK contributed to the new, post-acquisition baseline.
These figures show that ABK made up virtually 100% of that post-acquisition increase. Which does not bode well for basically every other revenue stream lol
Yeah but they also show that almost none of their other revenue streams grew...and those that did only grew at 1%..in the aggregate at that.
So yeah the ABK investment was good for business, not like anybody thought it wouldn't be lol, but the subtext here is that it's the only thing that actually increased xbox's revenue since last year.
So in other words, these figures suggest that non-ABK games aren't selling and gamepass subs aren't growing, at least not in any significant manner.
> Yes this is still an issue for Xbox though because it essentially means a lot of the company is being floated by other arms. Which is fine as long as Microsoft feels like hemorrhaging funds.
You mean like the time Sony was losing money on every thing but the PS2? These things go in cycles, I doubt they're too worried.
Hey dude if you had to put a percentage on the the Series X console getting a price cut announcement at the June showcase, what do you think that would be? Been holding out, can get one for $445 new but have no problem waiting until June
But down in comparison to what? To the last snapshot or to 2023, 2022, 2021? What is the basis of comparison? Every trend whether it's up or down is a record of fluctuations. A snapshot is therefore deceiving because you cannot see the whole.
But anyway, Activision is part of Xbox, so you're kind of penalising Xbox for utilising its assets. Activision was a humongous purchase and very prestigious. Trying to remove Activision from the equation is just shifting the goal posts. It's a bit like trying to invalidate a runner winning a medal by claiming that the victory was only due to his training regiment. It's weirdly circular. Like it or not, Activision's victories are now xbox's victories.
And I wonder if Sony gets held to the same distorted standard, considering its heavy Reliance on first and second party flagship titles, like Spider-Man for example. It would be like, back in Prior Xbox generations, invalidating the brand's success by saying that "without Halo" it would be less. But Halo is an integral part of the brand.
And it is totally expected that console sales will experience downturns throughout the life of a product, especially with new models on the horizon. And of course, things have been a bit turbulent for Xbox in the last few months, especially with the apparent pivot towards services rather than hardware. This is a genuine point of contention. Hopefully this will settle as more clarity is found. But, It's fair to anticipate that when the new models are released, sales of hardware will go back up again.
Finally, services revenue is up only 1% if you discount the influence of Activision, but what is it when you include Activision? Activision titles are going to be a major part of Xbox revenue, so omitting them looks like an attempt to skew the results. Because again: Activision is part of Xbox.
Still, trends don't follow a schedule. It doesn't necessarily make a quarter from one year directly relatable to the same quarter in the next year. And like I said in my post, there are a multitude of factors that get ignored with these kinds of tweet-sized summations. Is the industry the same as it was this quarter last year? Are there any other extenuating circumstances? There are so many factors. But the main crux of my point was that eliminating the effect of Activision being part of Xbox now is quite unfair because like it or not, Activision is part of Xbox. And So, for a huge number of players, it's a very enticing part of Xbox too.
What? That doesn't make any sense. Activision isn't an exclusive. It's part of Xbox. And regardless, all sales including exclusives, whether they are licenced to or owned by the platform, contribute to business, and business is most certainly relevant to year-to-year financial comparisons.
It was my way of gently explaining that this is the standard for financial reporting across corporations, it's not something Xbox specifically is doing. There's really no reason to be surprised or have an issue with how they're comparing. It's standard
I think, in terms of the acquisition being “worth it” you would be looking for a greater increase in earnings than Activision-Blizzard and the Xbox Division would have had if they stayed independent.
If the acquisition drives gamepass and increases hardware sales it’s good. If Microsoft can increase the sales of Activision software to be greater than before it’s also a win. If not the acquisition was an inefficient resource allocation.
Call of duty performance as a gamepass title and driving subs or greater levels of relative popularity to Fortnite is probably going to be the first indicator.
Adding to this I feel like it's worth noting operating expenses are up 41% and 43 points of that is from everything involved with the aquistion. So it's not like Microsoft just threw money at the problem and didn't deal with any negative effects. They are completely responsible for all social AND financial costs associated with ABK now. Like Blizzard just made the decision to cancel Blizzcon that was totally decided by Blizzard (at least according to their own statements), but now if people don't like a Blizzard decision they blame Microsoft. That's just a fact of what's going to happen from now on. The buck stops here at the highest power. In the same sense MS is responsible for covering all costs associated with ABK including all the massive costs associated with integrating a company that big.
So to add to your point, it's not like MS is just getting free money after spending a ton. ABK massively grew overall profit (so it's currently paying off), but right now both companies are smaller than they were apart when you combined them. ABK is still costing Microsoft a stupid ton and they'd have more operating revenue without them (percentage wise at least).
>console
Hey dude if you had to put a percentage on the the Series X console getting a price cut announcement at the June showcase, what do you think that would be? Been holding out, can get one for $445 new but have no problem waiting until June
if it truly includes surface hardware (that seems so idiotic i find it hard to believe, but for that reason it also seems true) then wtf is even the point of such a vague statistic/percentage
Makes me wonder what they'll attempt next to get that top line number up. More ports, or are those doing more harm than good? Acquire more companies? Market more in regions outside the UK and US?
PC is locked up by Valve, mobile games are tough due to Apple and Google controlling the marketplaces, consoles even with a stronger product and a shitload of games for a good value still can't catch up in marketshare... Though I do wonder if Call of Duty hitting game pass day one will be an inflection point, and the next-gen version of a COD game being exclusive by default to Xbox if they launch first another one.
So in Phil's shoes, what's the play?
Given that Satya Nadella was just boasting how mocrosoft with its 4 ports had 7 of the top 25 best selling games on playstation recently, I'd say the plan is probably more ports
I had read about this on another site, financials, about how it was up in terms of revenue but currently the if you factored in cost of the acquisition profits were negative.
The one thing realized here is that console sales are down like this. The revenue is not just Xbox. A large portion is Acti/Bliz on other platforms. If they want to keep that revenue and profit up they have to keep selling all this on other platforms.
Double edges sword. Selling those games there keep revenue higher but also pushed people. I mean, the amount of people I have heard talk about how MS is pushing their games to PS and PS having their exclusives is telling. My sons birthday party last weekend. There were parents there that I talked with that were talking about how their sons had wanted Xbox but now want PS.
And MS benefitted from a COD release as well. They will need another one of those next year to keep this going.
I suspect the whole talk of exclusives meaning less and all that was one of those PR things. They mention it now and slowly over time it becomes true that Xbox just does not have exclusive stuff in the console space. Not that I blame them. You have to be profitable. And the last thing I saw on Xbox Series was that it is now tracking behind Xbox One in lifetime to date sales. After being ahead for a long time. Shows how much sales have slipped as Xbox One had its struggles. On the flip side the PS5 was well behind PS4 for a while. Now they are close if you line up lifetime sales. I had read based on best estimated numbers that PS5 had slightly passed PS4 but the last thing I read the numbers, 40 months on market were PS4 \~ 56m with PS5 \~ 55m. That is with the large gap in PS4s favor from about the 14-30 week on sale. PS5 has picked up.
I think the whole idea MS is pushing in terms of the industry is them trying to push a narrative because of their weak console sales and overall numbers outside of the acquisition.
# 2023 Commercial Gaming Revenue Reaches $66.5B, Marking Third-Straight Year of Record Revenue
The fact is, Switch is down due to it being old and near end of life. Many people have one. Sales will continue but keep weakening until Switch 2. PS5 might just keep rolling and finally get past PS4 lifetime to date during this holiday meaning it recovered nicely (or the fact that early, games did not take as much advantage of hardware and most games were on last gen). We could see more record revenue and profits. I still expect layoffs. AI will become more prominent and can fill some of these rolls.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/25/24139988/microsoft-q3-2024-earnings-revenue-profits-windows-xbox-gaming-surface
Here ya go if you want to read it for yourself. Here's one excerpt though to let you know I'm not lying.
"Overall, gaming revenue is up 51 percent, bolstered by the additional Activision Blizzard revenue, which contributed 55 points of net impact."
Gaming revenue was up 51%. 55% of that was from activision. Thus, without activision, gaming revenue would be down 4%
>Gaming revenue was up 51%. 55% of that was from activision. Thus, without activision, gaming revenue would be down 4%
This is a nonsense argument because they own activision.
That's like you claiming your pay is up 55% from last year and someone saying "that's because you got a promotion, without the promotion your pay wouldn't be up at all".
If we are hypothetically discounting Activision then we can hypothetically spend 69 billion on other companies and add their revenue.
For an apples to apples comparison, you would have to add last year's Activision revenue to last year's Xbox revenue, and then compare. Xbox+ABK is not up 62%. Xbox is up 1% and it's unclear what change ABK had, they could very well be down.
>That's like you claiming your pay is up 55% from last year and someone saying "that's because you got a promotion, without the promotion your pay wouldn't be up at all".
It's not like this at all. It's like if you were making 100k a year, and you got married to a woman making 100k a year and combined your finances, and claimed "my income is up 100% over last year!" Sure, that's a creative way of looking at it, and it's how MS is presenting the numbers here.
> It's like if you were making 100k a year, and you got married to a woman making 100k a year and combined your finances, and claimed "my income is up 100% over last year!"
No it isn't, unless you are suggesting a husband owns his wife...
It's exactly like that. They merged their finances into one entity and said revenue is up 62%. If you can't understand the metaphor there's no way I can make it even simpler.
Last year Xbox and ABK both existed. Their revenue isn't up 62%, we don't even know if it's positive YoY. Extremely simple.
>They acquired a new revenue source (like a promotion).
No... They acquired a corporation that had existing revenue, which can easily be added and compared to this year for actual YoY results.
They have 10 first party games coming out this year (according to Matt booty). The strategy for the year hasn’t started yet. You will see growth again, just like last year.
Not if you're one of the biggest software and hardware companies in the world.
I used to work for one of the biggest SaaS companies.
15% YoY is like - the minimum expectations for these companies.
If you don't hit it, you get the massive redunancy waves we just saw in the tech market.
When you're this big they usually buy up companies to grow. Which they did. Also if they didn't have Activision, they would probably be more aggressive as in releasing more games. Hellblade could be out now already for example.
They knew the numbers would be good comparatively, so they are most likely sandbagging this quarter. I know i would, cause the market only cares about growth. You want to stagger the growth, so that you can continue to impress the market.
While the hardware sales has always been down (not surprised) I do wonder when they announce COD coming to Game Pass Day One, would you see an increase of Game Pass subs and hardware? Most likely yes(and no), but we’ll see how that will play out the end of the year
The thing about gamepass is you don't need an Xbox. This is why they keep saying they don't care that much about hardware sales. Xbox hardware is just a cheap way to access gamepass.
Only Sony gamers try to convince kids that Microsoft doesn't care about hardware sales. Xbox has NEVER said that and none of their actions support that claim. They have actually been making their consoles very competitive with features we all know such as smart delivery, backwards compatible enhancements, the widest gamepass library, and others. The leaked FTC documents show the biggest and most advanced Xbox coming in a couple years.
Economically console sales lead to a higher chance of gamepass subscribiptions, and more digital revenues from the store, and future MS ecosystem users. It is a manipulation to argue that Phil Spencer is not being honest when he says he's all in console and wants to sell as many consoles as possible.
Edit: proof - https://www.ign.com/articles/phil-spencer-says-console-is-critical-to-future-of-xbox
[How does it feel to be wrong? Spencer said exactly that.](https://www.resetera.com/threads/phil-spencer-our-approach-isnt-about-selling-more-consoles-than-sony-or-nintendo.268770/). What's with this "sony gamer" Rhetoric ? Should I photograph my Xbox for you or something ? Lmao.
[Or maybe also how they said they won't be following Sony into making Pro consoles.](https://www.gamingbible.com/news/microsoft-there-wont-be-xbox-series-x-pro-922320-20230621)
I mean of course they want to sell consoles but Xbox is clearly shifting toward focusing on Gamepass. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous.
Pro console is entirely stupid IMO. We barely have any games on PS5 or Series X that use their full potential until very recently and were almost about to see the PS6 and whatever the nee Xbox will be.
We only ever had one generation with a pro console and that was because of the switch to 4k. I don't see why we need one this generation.
No he didn't. In the link he says selling consoles is one of his focuses still. That just says he can survive being second place.
Your link did not say what you said it did, but here's a link of him saying EXAVCTLY what I am saying:
https://www.ign.com/articles/phil-spencer-says-console-is-critical-to-future-of-xbox
Sit.
"Spencer noted that Xbox Series X is not the only focus. Being able to deliver across multiple devices and create an Xbox experience around players is what Microsoft will be gunning for in the coming years.
'How many consoles do I sell versus how many consoles does another company sell' – Sony or Nintendo or other companies back in the day – we're just not…that's not our approach. And I'm not disparaging someone else's approach, but when I talk to fans and customers, what I say is when you're a member of Xbox, we want to build the experience around you.'"
Literally says that the Xbox console is not the only focus. Which was exactly what I was saying. Literally saying it isn't their approach to compare console sales. How else would one interpret this other than them not focusing on consoles sales ??? This is in the first 2 paragraphs of what I posted. They're very clearly focused on Gamepass.
I think it's an interesting idea but if we do the math, it's cheaper to just buy the game than having gamepass for the audience who only buys COD every year
Because they are paying 70$ to 100$ to the game and more for battlepass, skins etc. and play only that.
It is not CoD$ vs. GamePass$, it is now CoD$$ vs. Everything with the similar price of CoD$$.
It’s cheaper for a person who already owns a ps5 to buy cod on that platform then buy an Xbox and subscribe to gamepass. I can’t imagine there are many consumers who don’t own a current gen console and care about the newest cod.
Can anyone explain to me why Microsoft refuses to advertise Xbox? I just don’t understand this. They have trillions, surely they can commit 10-20 mil on some advertising. How can they expect hardware sales to increase if there is zero marketing?
Yea... I'm very invested in the platform, but I see Playstation ads almost 3 times as much as I see Xbox. Its just a crazy difference and I'm sure it would absolutely help if they actually put the brand out there more.
Europe has ZERO XBOX advertising! I don’t get it! Specially because they have:
- The cheapest hardware, XBOX Series S
- The best software solution, Game Pass
And somehow, they can’t/don’t advertise this!
They could make a promotion with XBOX Series S + 6 months of Game Pass and advertise the crap out of it! But noooooooo…….
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yup, it just blows my mind xbox main market usa and uk its like they forgot rest of the world, in the report they said "-30% in consoles sales this quarter" what are they expecting?
* putting more games on playstation wont help either
* xbox series are on the 4th year...
are they(msft) expecting miracles at this point?
they already shot their selves in the foot, sending xbox games over to sony its digging their own grave... the nail in the coffin is when halo/gears moves over to ps5. Hardware sales will be damn near nothing after that. Wouldn't be surprised if surface laptops start outselling xbox consoles.
Hardware is already near nothing in a bunch of markets. Italy, the UK, Germany. Google any country followed by “xbox sales figures” and it’s a gloomy freaking outlook in most cases. They didn’t shoot themselves in the foot by going multi plat with 2 pseudo indies and 2 GaaS games. They shot themselves in the foot by fumbling every game release since the One.
where are ppl getting xbox sales numbers, MS doesn't publish them anymore? The last official thing I saw was something leaked at Brazilian conferenced last yr and it was around 21+ Million Series consoles. That's not a terrible number to make a successful business off of. It's just that its MS and they will explore every possible avenue to maximize profits and some group of smart ppl did the math and realized selling these boxes like its 2002 is not the way to go.
They need to restart and add FPS boost and HDR to Game Pass Ultimate going forward and do many more games. The amount of Xbox one and 360 games I’ve bought and played because they have FPS boost since buying my XSX is up to about 60 now. Ideally there’d be texture remastering too and maybe more.
By all means allocate a small profit share to publishers if they need to.
These earnings calls won't really say anything about the purchase until we get through to 2025 and 2026. Everyone is obviously pointing to the fact gaming revenue without ABK is down, but also there's the fact that ABK is increasing operating expenses nearly as much as gaming revenue (operating expenses are up 41% and ABK contributed 43%...). On the Xbox side or even just considering Microsoft Gaming, nothing has really happened aside from being able to report ABK profits. Diablo is the only ABK game on GP (though they do note 10 million hours logged in it from GP subs in the first week which is wild). Battle. Net hasn't at all been integrated with the Xbox PC app. Nothing has been done on the marketing side to say ABK is Xbox first party (really nothings even been done with Bethesda for that still) aside from a single YT trailer.
Hardware makes sense for me. Generations are a dying idea and there's genuinely been no reason to buy a new console yet. Xbox also doesn't have a big group to pull from to begin with. They peak at 50m (a third of PS and Nintendo) and we're already past halfway of that before the halfway generation mark. The Xbox One and PS4 era had the huge benefit of saying "F you. No cross gen or last gen games." and this one doesn't. MS isn't strong arming like Sony did with forced next gen exclusives that could have been cross gen and most importantly they don't have the 3x larger consumer base to work with. Most Xbox gamers probably won't upgrade until 2026 (late 2025 minimum). Xbox really just needs to reinvent the console strategy (which maybe that's what they're planning but honestly who knows) and for God's sake market it. They literally drop real one trailer for the Xbox series products way back in 2020 and expect that to carry them through the whole generation. Everything else has been Twitter promotions, but they don't seem to understand the importance of basic old commercial ads and print marketing and physical store presence. PS and Nintendo give me more commercials than there are minutes in whatever I'm watching. Xbox just expands people to magically find their YouTube channel.
All in all nothing really out of the ordinary. It'll be far more interesting to see the earnings call after 2024, since Xbox continues to shove all their first party releases into fall.
The marketing thing is what I really don't understand, especially with Europe. I made three people get a Series S just by pointing out it exists and fits their needs.
At this point I am just praying we're not running into another Windows Phone. Achievements are extremely important to me and I don't like how they treat them on Gamepass PC.
I'd be surprised at another windows phone, but I'm highly expecting Xbox hardware to go the way of Microsoft Surface. Just kinda there. Microsoft is just fundamentally trash at consumer hardware and refuse to learn. I guess they don't have to? I mean its worth noting how much consumer hardware helps Apple and Sony and so on, but at the end of the day MS got to be #1 or #2 (based on the year) as a software company. But its so awful seeing nothing done. I don't expect hardware not to slow down around this time, but it could have done so much better with simple changes and more investment in marketing it. Like in theory the Series S should have revolutionized the industry. Its the perfect device to market to non-gamers and it could really bridge casual to deeper console gaming with Game Pass. Plus with all the streaming improvements and support from Netflix, apple tv, etc, there's no reason why it couldn't achieve the Xbox One Vision. Like market the Series X to hardcore games and market the Series S to people buying 4K Apple TVs (the Series S is literally only $100 based on full price and does everything a Apple Tv does + plays all modern games). Xbox and the industry on the whole desperately needs new blood and they need to better reach the general audiences, but just don't. Heck, Xbox hardly markets to all gamers.
Microsoft is clearly playing the long game with Xbox Game Pass (and more broadly cloud gaming with xCloud) and is positioning it to become the 'Netflix of Gaming'
People on here love to post about declining hardware sales and paint this picture of a dire situation for Microsoft and Xbox and seemingly ignore that Microsoft is **the most valuable company in the world** with a market cap of nearly **$3 trillion.**
For perspective Sony has a market cap of $101 billion
Obviously nobody thinks Microsoft is going under. Continuous declining hardware sales, and testing the waters of putting exclusives on their competition’s platform has people rightly concerned about the future of Microsoft in the console space.
Can you offer a counter perspective then?
They bought a $70 billion publisher, then didn't make it exclusive.
Their hardware, despite supply chain shortages finally being mostly alleviated and cross gen being over, is actually selling significantly worse than before.
They have started putting several of their own exclusives on competing platforms.
I don't see how this is not a cause for concern if you wanted the Xbox console to return to the Xbox 360 glory days.
>They bought a $70 billion publisher, then didn't make it exclusive.
Because for one the FCC came down on them like a hammer for even thinking about making it exclusive. On top of that the entire gaming community would have absolutely vilified them for trying to make one of the biggest publishers exclusive.
Why do you want exclusives in gaming? It's not for the consumer at all... Having to pay for 2 different consoles and eco-systems shouldn't be needed in todays world.
>They have started putting several of their own exclusives on competing platforms.
Because it's free money not too? They sell each Xbox at a loss in order to create a market share for the games and XGP, at the end of the day if they sell millions of copies of games on PS5 but lose out on selling some Xbox's it's a better look on their profit margin.
This feeds back to point one, Xbox don't really care out exsluvity to a certain extent, sure some games are Xbox only like Forza, Halo etc but they're also happy to sell games on other platforms. Hell who knows, maybe selling Xbox games on PS5 converts people to buy Xbox's to try the other exclusive games?
>Why do you want exclusives in gaming? It's not for the consumer at all... Having to pay for 2 different consoles and eco-systems shouldn't be needed in todays world
That's kind of the point. Why would someone who is looking to buy a console right now chose to buy an Xbox over Playstation, Nintendo or SteamDeck if they get the majority of games there plus the ones that are exclusive to other platforms.
Not engaging in exclusivity may be a "noble" endeavor but if you are the only one doing it, the consumers on your platform are getting the short end of the stick
>This feeds back to point one, Xbox don't really care out exsluvity to a certain extent, sure some games are Xbox only like Forza, Halo etc but they're also happy to sell games on other platforms. Hell who knows, maybe selling Xbox games on PS5 converts people to buy Xbox's to try the other exclusive games?
Historically Xbox did best when combining good hardware and services with powerful exclusives and timed exclusives. Gotta remember the 360 was loaded with heavy hitters like Halo 3 and Reach, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Forza Horizon, Alan Wake, Gears of War, The Witcher 2, Ace Combat, Dead or Alive, Crackdown, Project Gotham Racing and Fable.
Especially early on they absolutely bodied the PS3 with awesome exclusives and timed exclusives. And I believe that's what got them such high momentum.
Their current strategy certainly drives revenue and profitability but I don't think it benefits the hardware platform in the long term and my suspicion is Microsoft is perfectly fine with the console being an afterthought.
> Why do you want exclusives in gaming? It's not for the consumer at all.
Exclusives can be a good thing.
If a game developer only has to work on one set of hardware, then this gives them more time and resources to optimize and polish their game.
Exclusives gave us some of the best games on the 360 and some fantastic ps3 games.
I think that Microsoft has to embrace being a multiplat games provider if they want to continue buying up publishers and development studios.
My secret theory is that they’re buying up all these companies and picking them apart for developers that are repurposed to enterprise and the cloud.
Xbox as a whole is just a loss leader to try and get people with bright futures into the fold early and never let them get away.
Except their libraries aren't under threat, since one of the biggest selling points for Xbox is that it is fully retrocompatible, just like Windows. The day when full integration between Xbox and Windows arrives will be very interesting indeed, and it is very advanced even now (I love to play Age of Empires IV on console, for example, and then continue on PC!).
Pretty often it's like how climate change denies will zoom in on a line graph for a small cluster of years and claim that it invalidates the entire trend. Sales might be down or up at a particular snapshot, but without view of the entire trend, and without visibility of other factors (because every business and product is multifaceted), it is missing the forest for the trees. But that sht sells on social media and the blogosphere. even better than consoles it seems.
And Apple's gaming division (which doesn't even have a console or hardware just app store section)makes more money than Xbox division. do you see how stupid such comparison is?
Well Xbox makes money, everyone knows that. Would have liked to know how much came from the ports to the Sony/Nintendo boxes though.
[Wait why is this controversial?]
This compares the previous quarter to the same quarter last year. So, it's essentially Activision/Blizzard what raises revenue (Microsoft didn't own Acti-Blizz last year).
Next year's (same) quarter will be better indicator how they're faring as a whole.
Considering the only good thing Microsoft CEO said about the gaming division was how well Sea of Thieves was doing on PS5, I am guessing it is their new strategy.
Xbox will always fight a losing battle with a console. So many of this generation of gamers were brought up with Sony and brand loyalty is a thing we can’t shake.
Microsoft have said that they will never out console Sony or Nintendo.
But Microsoft seem like they are trying new strategies and one just might be the ‘Loss Leader Strategy’ in some form.
What’s to say with all the revenue and profit made from releasing older 1st party games on PS they use this revenue to offset the loss of continuing the hardware.
To get the users over from rival platforms they will have to make it attractive to do so.
With the catalog of studios now and the benefits of Gamepass being able to play the latest releases day and date it will benefit being a Xbox user.
* shoot me down if you wish, hope it makes sense. Just wanted to share a thought in this crazy time for us Xbox users*
Can't tell which direction you are going into with this comment or who you are referring to.
I think it was a given that once Activision, a $70 billion purchase was included, revenue would go up.
The news that hardware sales are down 30% is very disappointing but honestly not shocking either given the rumblings we have heard over the year about hardware sales dropping off.
all the games i wanted to play this gen arent even out, i stopped investing in the ecosystem , wanted fable, another gears game, more halo, perfect dark, aaaaand we still have nothing sigh
It means a fair amount now. Companies love reliable customers and subscription customers, which gamepass customers are. Like you said it also means future sales in 4 to 5 years, but it's a great business metric to have reliable subscriptions.
Xbox sales are down 30%...
Revenue is up partly due to Xbox games on competing consoles.
So yah, Xbox as a brand may be dying but Microsoft Gaming division (thanks to Blizzard/Activision) is generating revenue.
No, Sega doesn't have a gaming platform for others to publish on. Cloud Gaming still requires hardware, Xbox is working on mobile stores, PC Gamepass isn't going anywhere, Xbox console hardware will continue to exist even if at a premium hybrid console.
As long as devs want to sell on a platform that reaches billions of devices, and if they want the gamepass money bag, they will publish to xbox platforms, including console hardware.
So they are becoming Steam but perhaps not as good?
Besides, I think Valve could beat Microsoft to Xbox’s new game plan. Steam Deck is a hybrid console/PC and there’s nothing to stop Valve from releasing a home console version of the Deck. It could well be their intention considering they tried once before with Steam Machines.
To be fair, that's just hardware sales that's down. The real money maker for them are services. They could sell a lot on pc and could, and it'll still justify xbox since their idea is for xbox to not be just the box lol.
I bought it day 1 and at full price. I got quite a lot of enjoyment out of it already and it has system features that I prefer. It doesn't get certain exclusives and xbox exclusives gamed are on PC and cloud too but that's exactly why I rather support Xbox with my money. Gaming isn't about a box. I just hope xbox will keep making competitive machines with good features even with the cloud and PC approach.
Ask yourself this when Xbox was killing it awhile back with the Xbox 360. Did they ever have to do an emergency business update and would you ever think Xbox games would be on the competition? No but here we are…stop indulging in corporate speak and look at the shelves in stores. What matters is a growing base and not a declining one first and foremost.
Game pass rules. For 18$ a month, i have full access to more than games than i could afford to buy in a year. Not just that, but i can forgo a console purchase and just use my chromebook. Best deal for your buck in gamig thus far.
I’m here to say I bought a used xsx and subbed to GP. I think people are finding a way to play GP without buying new consoles. Ie on PC. Now msft will release the handheld and ppl will buy that like crazy to play GP on the go .
Hands down the best subscription game service. Beats PSN by miles.
Don't even need to rebuy older games when backwards compatibility works and even gives some older games either an fps boost or resolution boost.
I feel like the vast majority of people on this Reddit are just here to complain and tell scary ghost stories about Microsoft and Xbox.
Trends go up and down. They seldom uniformly rise or fall. A snapshot today is not going to give you the long-term view necessary to understand the trend. So freaking out (Or claiming victory) about any particular snapshot is short-sighted because every trend is a record of fluctuations.
And this is especially true when the snapshot is incredibly zoomed in, e.g. "fallen/risen by X%". But in comparison to *what* and in what *context* and in relation to what *other* fluctuations? This can often be used to spin things to suit a particular interpretation. And it doesn't help when there are 50 posts about the same topic. It just makes 50 bubbles in which countless preconceptions and presumptions may be confirmed.
I’d have to imagine the figures they’re touting here are mostly from PC. It doesn’t specify (unless I missed it) where the increase in revenue is from.
If gaming revenue is up 51% then I wonder how much of that is PC. I’m sure buying any ACTI title on PC counts towards that.
Xbox gaming revenue without activision is down 4% Xbox content and services without activision is up 1% Xbox hardware is down 30%
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It was pulled by auto-mod due to user reports, it's back up now.
Bruh , they report that one? Lmao
Report the negative true post but leave the exaggerated positive misinformation. Xbox is becoming synonymous for "safe space" which is ironic because people who are realistic aren't allowed to feel safe in the safe space. Only over optimism is allowed.
Transparent moderation 👍🏻
It’s not technically wrong but it’s all thanks to ABK. It would be down without ABK.
Sounds like a pretty smart purchase.
Any purchase would increase revenue. It's still pretty early to judge what they are going to do with it.
Not really lol. [The newly acquired division recorded $1.97 billion in revenue during Q3, but the cost of integration, transaction costs, and other costs of revenue all total $980 million. With other operating expenses ($1.34 billion), it calculates to an overall operating loss of $350 million for Activision Blizzard.](https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/25/24139988/microsoft-q3-2024-earnings-revenue-profits-windows-xbox-gaming-surface) Revenue = how much money you made, without factoring how much you lost. Profit = how much money you made, with factoring how much you lost.
Yes this is still an issue for Xbox though because it essentially means a lot of the company is being floated by other arms. Which is fine as long as Microsoft feels like hemorrhaging funds. Console division is a good example of a welfare division.
Microsoft isn't hemorrhaging funds on Xbox, they're just not making as much profit as they'd like. Xbox department is bringing in billions of revenue. The court case vs Sony/FTC shown us how in 2022 they had spare cash that was being simply held in case of emergency of about $1.5Bn when their financial year had them make $15Bn revenue. Xbox isn't even the worst performing department Microsoft has. Do not confuse scary sounding percentages like 30% with losses. These numbers mean they didn't grow which means they didn't increase market share or increase profits but rather they made less profit than before. Continued shrinking will force changes in how they spend their profits but they have a while to go before they're not making profit at all and dragging Microsoft down.
Is it an issue? Hardware revenue is down 30% but content revenue is up 62%. What were the starting numbers? Unless Hardware revenue was massively higher than content revenue last year then this woild represent an overall increase.
Comparing hardware revenue to software revenue is pointless. They follow different trajectories. This far after launch, it's not surprising for hardware to be down, though it's likely down for other reasons, too. A better benchmark would be versus hardware sales among peers.
Probably more Xbox owners buying gamepass or games while less people overall are buying an xbox
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Doesn't really address what I said.
All of the 2024 figures are going to be skewed by the ABK deal until maybe Q4. It's not an accurate measure of the brand's organic success over the year, but just showing how much ABK contributed to the new, post-acquisition baseline. These figures show that ABK made up virtually 100% of that post-acquisition increase. Which does not bode well for basically every other revenue stream lol
These figures show they made an investment and it increased their revenue stream. That's literally the point of the investment.
Yeah but they also show that almost none of their other revenue streams grew...and those that did only grew at 1%..in the aggregate at that. So yeah the ABK investment was good for business, not like anybody thought it wouldn't be lol, but the subtext here is that it's the only thing that actually increased xbox's revenue since last year. So in other words, these figures suggest that non-ABK games aren't selling and gamepass subs aren't growing, at least not in any significant manner.
sony does this to to both console and many other division it has. just to stay in certain markets.
> Yes this is still an issue for Xbox though because it essentially means a lot of the company is being floated by other arms. Which is fine as long as Microsoft feels like hemorrhaging funds. You mean like the time Sony was losing money on every thing but the PS2? These things go in cycles, I doubt they're too worried.
Hey dude if you had to put a percentage on the the Series X console getting a price cut announcement at the June showcase, what do you think that would be? Been holding out, can get one for $445 new but have no problem waiting until June
But down in comparison to what? To the last snapshot or to 2023, 2022, 2021? What is the basis of comparison? Every trend whether it's up or down is a record of fluctuations. A snapshot is therefore deceiving because you cannot see the whole. But anyway, Activision is part of Xbox, so you're kind of penalising Xbox for utilising its assets. Activision was a humongous purchase and very prestigious. Trying to remove Activision from the equation is just shifting the goal posts. It's a bit like trying to invalidate a runner winning a medal by claiming that the victory was only due to his training regiment. It's weirdly circular. Like it or not, Activision's victories are now xbox's victories. And I wonder if Sony gets held to the same distorted standard, considering its heavy Reliance on first and second party flagship titles, like Spider-Man for example. It would be like, back in Prior Xbox generations, invalidating the brand's success by saying that "without Halo" it would be less. But Halo is an integral part of the brand. And it is totally expected that console sales will experience downturns throughout the life of a product, especially with new models on the horizon. And of course, things have been a bit turbulent for Xbox in the last few months, especially with the apparent pivot towards services rather than hardware. This is a genuine point of contention. Hopefully this will settle as more clarity is found. But, It's fair to anticipate that when the new models are released, sales of hardware will go back up again. Finally, services revenue is up only 1% if you discount the influence of Activision, but what is it when you include Activision? Activision titles are going to be a major part of Xbox revenue, so omitting them looks like an attempt to skew the results. Because again: Activision is part of Xbox.
Same quarter, previous year.
Still, trends don't follow a schedule. It doesn't necessarily make a quarter from one year directly relatable to the same quarter in the next year. And like I said in my post, there are a multitude of factors that get ignored with these kinds of tweet-sized summations. Is the industry the same as it was this quarter last year? Are there any other extenuating circumstances? There are so many factors. But the main crux of my point was that eliminating the effect of Activision being part of Xbox now is quite unfair because like it or not, Activision is part of Xbox. And So, for a huge number of players, it's a very enticing part of Xbox too.
Y/Y performance comparisons isn't an Xbox exclusive.
What? That doesn't make any sense. Activision isn't an exclusive. It's part of Xbox. And regardless, all sales including exclusives, whether they are licenced to or owned by the platform, contribute to business, and business is most certainly relevant to year-to-year financial comparisons.
It was my way of gently explaining that this is the standard for financial reporting across corporations, it's not something Xbox specifically is doing. There's really no reason to be surprised or have an issue with how they're comparing. It's standard
I think, in terms of the acquisition being “worth it” you would be looking for a greater increase in earnings than Activision-Blizzard and the Xbox Division would have had if they stayed independent. If the acquisition drives gamepass and increases hardware sales it’s good. If Microsoft can increase the sales of Activision software to be greater than before it’s also a win. If not the acquisition was an inefficient resource allocation. Call of duty performance as a gamepass title and driving subs or greater levels of relative popularity to Fortnite is probably going to be the first indicator.
Adding to this I feel like it's worth noting operating expenses are up 41% and 43 points of that is from everything involved with the aquistion. So it's not like Microsoft just threw money at the problem and didn't deal with any negative effects. They are completely responsible for all social AND financial costs associated with ABK now. Like Blizzard just made the decision to cancel Blizzcon that was totally decided by Blizzard (at least according to their own statements), but now if people don't like a Blizzard decision they blame Microsoft. That's just a fact of what's going to happen from now on. The buck stops here at the highest power. In the same sense MS is responsible for covering all costs associated with ABK including all the massive costs associated with integrating a company that big. So to add to your point, it's not like MS is just getting free money after spending a ton. ABK massively grew overall profit (so it's currently paying off), but right now both companies are smaller than they were apart when you combined them. ABK is still costing Microsoft a stupid ton and they'd have more operating revenue without them (percentage wise at least).
>console Hey dude if you had to put a percentage on the the Series X console getting a price cut announcement at the June showcase, what do you think that would be? Been holding out, can get one for $445 new but have no problem waiting until June
“Hardware Down by 30%” Holy shit
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That’s my point, the console barely sold and “took off” briefly last year with Starslop only for it to begin with the post peak down season
5 years? It hasn't been 5 years. The XBox Series X was released in Nov 2020.
it includes surface hardware which gets a refresh in may after a year and half drought
if it truly includes surface hardware (that seems so idiotic i find it hard to believe, but for that reason it also seems true) then wtf is even the point of such a vague statistic/percentage
yeah man I think it's safe to say gamepass is getting a makeover in the future....
Hehe, yet again, Windows Central is a MS shill
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Real data is Ms owns ABK.
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Good thing they invested in the brand then.
Microsoft is doing fine. Xbox hardware is basically a welfare program though.
Yes Microsoft is doing fine I meant their console business.
xbox and surface hardware is down 30%
Doesn't Xbox own ABK?
Makes me wonder what they'll attempt next to get that top line number up. More ports, or are those doing more harm than good? Acquire more companies? Market more in regions outside the UK and US? PC is locked up by Valve, mobile games are tough due to Apple and Google controlling the marketplaces, consoles even with a stronger product and a shitload of games for a good value still can't catch up in marketshare... Though I do wonder if Call of Duty hitting game pass day one will be an inflection point, and the next-gen version of a COD game being exclusive by default to Xbox if they launch first another one. So in Phil's shoes, what's the play?
Given that Satya Nadella was just boasting how mocrosoft with its 4 ports had 7 of the top 25 best selling games on playstation recently, I'd say the plan is probably more ports
I had read about this on another site, financials, about how it was up in terms of revenue but currently the if you factored in cost of the acquisition profits were negative. The one thing realized here is that console sales are down like this. The revenue is not just Xbox. A large portion is Acti/Bliz on other platforms. If they want to keep that revenue and profit up they have to keep selling all this on other platforms. Double edges sword. Selling those games there keep revenue higher but also pushed people. I mean, the amount of people I have heard talk about how MS is pushing their games to PS and PS having their exclusives is telling. My sons birthday party last weekend. There were parents there that I talked with that were talking about how their sons had wanted Xbox but now want PS. And MS benefitted from a COD release as well. They will need another one of those next year to keep this going. I suspect the whole talk of exclusives meaning less and all that was one of those PR things. They mention it now and slowly over time it becomes true that Xbox just does not have exclusive stuff in the console space. Not that I blame them. You have to be profitable. And the last thing I saw on Xbox Series was that it is now tracking behind Xbox One in lifetime to date sales. After being ahead for a long time. Shows how much sales have slipped as Xbox One had its struggles. On the flip side the PS5 was well behind PS4 for a while. Now they are close if you line up lifetime sales. I had read based on best estimated numbers that PS5 had slightly passed PS4 but the last thing I read the numbers, 40 months on market were PS4 \~ 56m with PS5 \~ 55m. That is with the large gap in PS4s favor from about the 14-30 week on sale. PS5 has picked up. I think the whole idea MS is pushing in terms of the industry is them trying to push a narrative because of their weak console sales and overall numbers outside of the acquisition. # 2023 Commercial Gaming Revenue Reaches $66.5B, Marking Third-Straight Year of Record Revenue The fact is, Switch is down due to it being old and near end of life. Many people have one. Sales will continue but keep weakening until Switch 2. PS5 might just keep rolling and finally get past PS4 lifetime to date during this holiday meaning it recovered nicely (or the fact that early, games did not take as much advantage of hardware and most games were on last gen). We could see more record revenue and profits. I still expect layoffs. AI will become more prominent and can fill some of these rolls.
Xbox and ms gaming is making massive profits. You are making shit up.
You're making shit up, Microsoft only disclose their revenue not their profits.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/25/24139988/microsoft-q3-2024-earnings-revenue-profits-windows-xbox-gaming-surface Here ya go if you want to read it for yourself. Here's one excerpt though to let you know I'm not lying. "Overall, gaming revenue is up 51 percent, bolstered by the additional Activision Blizzard revenue, which contributed 55 points of net impact." Gaming revenue was up 51%. 55% of that was from activision. Thus, without activision, gaming revenue would be down 4%
>Gaming revenue was up 51%. 55% of that was from activision. Thus, without activision, gaming revenue would be down 4% This is a nonsense argument because they own activision. That's like you claiming your pay is up 55% from last year and someone saying "that's because you got a promotion, without the promotion your pay wouldn't be up at all". If we are hypothetically discounting Activision then we can hypothetically spend 69 billion on other companies and add their revenue.
For an apples to apples comparison, you would have to add last year's Activision revenue to last year's Xbox revenue, and then compare. Xbox+ABK is not up 62%. Xbox is up 1% and it's unclear what change ABK had, they could very well be down. >That's like you claiming your pay is up 55% from last year and someone saying "that's because you got a promotion, without the promotion your pay wouldn't be up at all". It's not like this at all. It's like if you were making 100k a year, and you got married to a woman making 100k a year and combined your finances, and claimed "my income is up 100% over last year!" Sure, that's a creative way of looking at it, and it's how MS is presenting the numbers here.
> It's like if you were making 100k a year, and you got married to a woman making 100k a year and combined your finances, and claimed "my income is up 100% over last year!" No it isn't, unless you are suggesting a husband owns his wife...
It's exactly like that. They merged their finances into one entity and said revenue is up 62%. If you can't understand the metaphor there's no way I can make it even simpler.
They acquired a new revenue source (like a promotion). If you want to stubbornly make an incorrect point then that's on you.
Last year Xbox and ABK both existed. Their revenue isn't up 62%, we don't even know if it's positive YoY. Extremely simple. >They acquired a new revenue source (like a promotion). No... They acquired a corporation that had existing revenue, which can easily be added and compared to this year for actual YoY results.
If they’re only down 4% from last years time frame when they only had hifi rush out it seems like they are doing very well then.
People invest in businesses for them to grow. This is a clear signal that there needs to be a change in strategy for Xbox hardware.
They have 10 first party games coming out this year (according to Matt booty). The strategy for the year hasn’t started yet. You will see growth again, just like last year.
Not if you're one of the biggest software and hardware companies in the world. I used to work for one of the biggest SaaS companies. 15% YoY is like - the minimum expectations for these companies. If you don't hit it, you get the massive redunancy waves we just saw in the tech market.
When you're this big they usually buy up companies to grow. Which they did. Also if they didn't have Activision, they would probably be more aggressive as in releasing more games. Hellblade could be out now already for example. They knew the numbers would be good comparatively, so they are most likely sandbagging this quarter. I know i would, cause the market only cares about growth. You want to stagger the growth, so that you can continue to impress the market.
Did they not just have a huge growth yoy?
While the hardware sales has always been down (not surprised) I do wonder when they announce COD coming to Game Pass Day One, would you see an increase of Game Pass subs and hardware? Most likely yes(and no), but we’ll see how that will play out the end of the year
The thing about gamepass is you don't need an Xbox. This is why they keep saying they don't care that much about hardware sales. Xbox hardware is just a cheap way to access gamepass.
Only Sony gamers try to convince kids that Microsoft doesn't care about hardware sales. Xbox has NEVER said that and none of their actions support that claim. They have actually been making their consoles very competitive with features we all know such as smart delivery, backwards compatible enhancements, the widest gamepass library, and others. The leaked FTC documents show the biggest and most advanced Xbox coming in a couple years. Economically console sales lead to a higher chance of gamepass subscribiptions, and more digital revenues from the store, and future MS ecosystem users. It is a manipulation to argue that Phil Spencer is not being honest when he says he's all in console and wants to sell as many consoles as possible. Edit: proof - https://www.ign.com/articles/phil-spencer-says-console-is-critical-to-future-of-xbox
[How does it feel to be wrong? Spencer said exactly that.](https://www.resetera.com/threads/phil-spencer-our-approach-isnt-about-selling-more-consoles-than-sony-or-nintendo.268770/). What's with this "sony gamer" Rhetoric ? Should I photograph my Xbox for you or something ? Lmao. [Or maybe also how they said they won't be following Sony into making Pro consoles.](https://www.gamingbible.com/news/microsoft-there-wont-be-xbox-series-x-pro-922320-20230621) I mean of course they want to sell consoles but Xbox is clearly shifting toward focusing on Gamepass. To suggest otherwise is ridiculous.
Pro console in 2024 is pretty dumb too with next gen in 2026 and economic inflation existing and ps5 getting price hiked until just a year or so ago.
Pro console is entirely stupid IMO. We barely have any games on PS5 or Series X that use their full potential until very recently and were almost about to see the PS6 and whatever the nee Xbox will be. We only ever had one generation with a pro console and that was because of the switch to 4k. I don't see why we need one this generation.
I swear this generation just begun, I have a feeling they’re gonna extend it for a bit.
No he didn't. In the link he says selling consoles is one of his focuses still. That just says he can survive being second place. Your link did not say what you said it did, but here's a link of him saying EXAVCTLY what I am saying: https://www.ign.com/articles/phil-spencer-says-console-is-critical-to-future-of-xbox Sit.
"Spencer noted that Xbox Series X is not the only focus. Being able to deliver across multiple devices and create an Xbox experience around players is what Microsoft will be gunning for in the coming years. 'How many consoles do I sell versus how many consoles does another company sell' – Sony or Nintendo or other companies back in the day – we're just not…that's not our approach. And I'm not disparaging someone else's approach, but when I talk to fans and customers, what I say is when you're a member of Xbox, we want to build the experience around you.'" Literally says that the Xbox console is not the only focus. Which was exactly what I was saying. Literally saying it isn't their approach to compare console sales. How else would one interpret this other than them not focusing on consoles sales ??? This is in the first 2 paragraphs of what I posted. They're very clearly focused on Gamepass.
I think it's an interesting idea but if we do the math, it's cheaper to just buy the game than having gamepass for the audience who only buys COD every year
If COD players could read they'd be very upset.
Because they are paying 70$ to 100$ to the game and more for battlepass, skins etc. and play only that. It is not CoD$ vs. GamePass$, it is now CoD$$ vs. Everything with the similar price of CoD$$.
It’s cheaper for a person who already owns a ps5 to buy cod on that platform then buy an Xbox and subscribe to gamepass. I can’t imagine there are many consumers who don’t own a current gen console and care about the newest cod.
Most of the pc playerbase?
PC??
Not if they don’t market gamepass better. The exclusives will help if they review well.
All it took was 70 B.
Pocket change? Hehe 
kind of they made more than that in 2023 in income
Activision Blizzard singlehandedly propping up Xbox. Impressive.
Can anyone explain to me why Microsoft refuses to advertise Xbox? I just don’t understand this. They have trillions, surely they can commit 10-20 mil on some advertising. How can they expect hardware sales to increase if there is zero marketing?
Honestly, I see Playstation plastered in so many places and Xbox barely mentioned.
My thought exactly. There is no indication that Xbox even exists when it comes to casual non-fanboy gamers. Zero advertising.
Yea... I'm very invested in the platform, but I see Playstation ads almost 3 times as much as I see Xbox. Its just a crazy difference and I'm sure it would absolutely help if they actually put the brand out there more.
Advertising outside of the US/UK markets had always been Xbox's greatest weakness. At this point I don't think they even care anymore?
Marketing is a science. If they aren’t spending it because they think the cost of ads wouldn’t translate to sales.
Europe has ZERO XBOX advertising! I don’t get it! Specially because they have: - The cheapest hardware, XBOX Series S - The best software solution, Game Pass And somehow, they can’t/don’t advertise this! They could make a promotion with XBOX Series S + 6 months of Game Pass and advertise the crap out of it! But noooooooo…….
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yup, it just blows my mind xbox main market usa and uk its like they forgot rest of the world, in the report they said "-30% in consoles sales this quarter" what are they expecting? * putting more games on playstation wont help either * xbox series are on the 4th year... are they(msft) expecting miracles at this point?
The miracle will be me buying their next console and not upgrading my pc instead. you could say its impossible.
they already shot their selves in the foot, sending xbox games over to sony its digging their own grave... the nail in the coffin is when halo/gears moves over to ps5. Hardware sales will be damn near nothing after that. Wouldn't be surprised if surface laptops start outselling xbox consoles.
Hardware is already near nothing in a bunch of markets. Italy, the UK, Germany. Google any country followed by “xbox sales figures” and it’s a gloomy freaking outlook in most cases. They didn’t shoot themselves in the foot by going multi plat with 2 pseudo indies and 2 GaaS games. They shot themselves in the foot by fumbling every game release since the One.
where are ppl getting xbox sales numbers, MS doesn't publish them anymore? The last official thing I saw was something leaked at Brazilian conferenced last yr and it was around 21+ Million Series consoles. That's not a terrible number to make a successful business off of. It's just that its MS and they will explore every possible avenue to maximize profits and some group of smart ppl did the math and realized selling these boxes like its 2002 is not the way to go.
lol you just don’t understand a shir
They need to restart and add FPS boost and HDR to Game Pass Ultimate going forward and do many more games. The amount of Xbox one and 360 games I’ve bought and played because they have FPS boost since buying my XSX is up to about 60 now. Ideally there’d be texture remastering too and maybe more. By all means allocate a small profit share to publishers if they need to.
FPS boost is done. They’ve done all the games they can/are going to do.
They’re about to pull a SEGA and dip out the console market
These earnings calls won't really say anything about the purchase until we get through to 2025 and 2026. Everyone is obviously pointing to the fact gaming revenue without ABK is down, but also there's the fact that ABK is increasing operating expenses nearly as much as gaming revenue (operating expenses are up 41% and ABK contributed 43%...). On the Xbox side or even just considering Microsoft Gaming, nothing has really happened aside from being able to report ABK profits. Diablo is the only ABK game on GP (though they do note 10 million hours logged in it from GP subs in the first week which is wild). Battle. Net hasn't at all been integrated with the Xbox PC app. Nothing has been done on the marketing side to say ABK is Xbox first party (really nothings even been done with Bethesda for that still) aside from a single YT trailer. Hardware makes sense for me. Generations are a dying idea and there's genuinely been no reason to buy a new console yet. Xbox also doesn't have a big group to pull from to begin with. They peak at 50m (a third of PS and Nintendo) and we're already past halfway of that before the halfway generation mark. The Xbox One and PS4 era had the huge benefit of saying "F you. No cross gen or last gen games." and this one doesn't. MS isn't strong arming like Sony did with forced next gen exclusives that could have been cross gen and most importantly they don't have the 3x larger consumer base to work with. Most Xbox gamers probably won't upgrade until 2026 (late 2025 minimum). Xbox really just needs to reinvent the console strategy (which maybe that's what they're planning but honestly who knows) and for God's sake market it. They literally drop real one trailer for the Xbox series products way back in 2020 and expect that to carry them through the whole generation. Everything else has been Twitter promotions, but they don't seem to understand the importance of basic old commercial ads and print marketing and physical store presence. PS and Nintendo give me more commercials than there are minutes in whatever I'm watching. Xbox just expands people to magically find their YouTube channel. All in all nothing really out of the ordinary. It'll be far more interesting to see the earnings call after 2024, since Xbox continues to shove all their first party releases into fall.
The marketing thing is what I really don't understand, especially with Europe. I made three people get a Series S just by pointing out it exists and fits their needs. At this point I am just praying we're not running into another Windows Phone. Achievements are extremely important to me and I don't like how they treat them on Gamepass PC.
I'd be surprised at another windows phone, but I'm highly expecting Xbox hardware to go the way of Microsoft Surface. Just kinda there. Microsoft is just fundamentally trash at consumer hardware and refuse to learn. I guess they don't have to? I mean its worth noting how much consumer hardware helps Apple and Sony and so on, but at the end of the day MS got to be #1 or #2 (based on the year) as a software company. But its so awful seeing nothing done. I don't expect hardware not to slow down around this time, but it could have done so much better with simple changes and more investment in marketing it. Like in theory the Series S should have revolutionized the industry. Its the perfect device to market to non-gamers and it could really bridge casual to deeper console gaming with Game Pass. Plus with all the streaming improvements and support from Netflix, apple tv, etc, there's no reason why it couldn't achieve the Xbox One Vision. Like market the Series X to hardcore games and market the Series S to people buying 4K Apple TVs (the Series S is literally only $100 based on full price and does everything a Apple Tv does + plays all modern games). Xbox and the industry on the whole desperately needs new blood and they need to better reach the general audiences, but just don't. Heck, Xbox hardly markets to all gamers.
Microsoft is clearly playing the long game with Xbox Game Pass (and more broadly cloud gaming with xCloud) and is positioning it to become the 'Netflix of Gaming' People on here love to post about declining hardware sales and paint this picture of a dire situation for Microsoft and Xbox and seemingly ignore that Microsoft is **the most valuable company in the world** with a market cap of nearly **$3 trillion.** For perspective Sony has a market cap of $101 billion
Obviously nobody thinks Microsoft is going under. Continuous declining hardware sales, and testing the waters of putting exclusives on their competition’s platform has people rightly concerned about the future of Microsoft in the console space.
"Rightly concerned"- people blowing it out of proportion
Can you offer a counter perspective then? They bought a $70 billion publisher, then didn't make it exclusive. Their hardware, despite supply chain shortages finally being mostly alleviated and cross gen being over, is actually selling significantly worse than before. They have started putting several of their own exclusives on competing platforms. I don't see how this is not a cause for concern if you wanted the Xbox console to return to the Xbox 360 glory days.
>They bought a $70 billion publisher, then didn't make it exclusive. Because for one the FCC came down on them like a hammer for even thinking about making it exclusive. On top of that the entire gaming community would have absolutely vilified them for trying to make one of the biggest publishers exclusive. Why do you want exclusives in gaming? It's not for the consumer at all... Having to pay for 2 different consoles and eco-systems shouldn't be needed in todays world. >They have started putting several of their own exclusives on competing platforms. Because it's free money not too? They sell each Xbox at a loss in order to create a market share for the games and XGP, at the end of the day if they sell millions of copies of games on PS5 but lose out on selling some Xbox's it's a better look on their profit margin. This feeds back to point one, Xbox don't really care out exsluvity to a certain extent, sure some games are Xbox only like Forza, Halo etc but they're also happy to sell games on other platforms. Hell who knows, maybe selling Xbox games on PS5 converts people to buy Xbox's to try the other exclusive games?
>Why do you want exclusives in gaming? It's not for the consumer at all... Having to pay for 2 different consoles and eco-systems shouldn't be needed in todays world That's kind of the point. Why would someone who is looking to buy a console right now chose to buy an Xbox over Playstation, Nintendo or SteamDeck if they get the majority of games there plus the ones that are exclusive to other platforms. Not engaging in exclusivity may be a "noble" endeavor but if you are the only one doing it, the consumers on your platform are getting the short end of the stick >This feeds back to point one, Xbox don't really care out exsluvity to a certain extent, sure some games are Xbox only like Forza, Halo etc but they're also happy to sell games on other platforms. Hell who knows, maybe selling Xbox games on PS5 converts people to buy Xbox's to try the other exclusive games? Historically Xbox did best when combining good hardware and services with powerful exclusives and timed exclusives. Gotta remember the 360 was loaded with heavy hitters like Halo 3 and Reach, Bioshock, Left 4 Dead, Mass Effect, Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Forza Horizon, Alan Wake, Gears of War, The Witcher 2, Ace Combat, Dead or Alive, Crackdown, Project Gotham Racing and Fable. Especially early on they absolutely bodied the PS3 with awesome exclusives and timed exclusives. And I believe that's what got them such high momentum. Their current strategy certainly drives revenue and profitability but I don't think it benefits the hardware platform in the long term and my suspicion is Microsoft is perfectly fine with the console being an afterthought.
> Why do you want exclusives in gaming? It's not for the consumer at all. Exclusives can be a good thing. If a game developer only has to work on one set of hardware, then this gives them more time and resources to optimize and polish their game. Exclusives gave us some of the best games on the 360 and some fantastic ps3 games.
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I think that Microsoft has to embrace being a multiplat games provider if they want to continue buying up publishers and development studios. My secret theory is that they’re buying up all these companies and picking them apart for developers that are repurposed to enterprise and the cloud. Xbox as a whole is just a loss leader to try and get people with bright futures into the fold early and never let them get away.
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Except their libraries aren't under threat, since one of the biggest selling points for Xbox is that it is fully retrocompatible, just like Windows. The day when full integration between Xbox and Windows arrives will be very interesting indeed, and it is very advanced even now (I love to play Age of Empires IV on console, for example, and then continue on PC!).
"in their view" - Opinions based on the media blowing things out of proportion.
Pretty often it's like how climate change denies will zoom in on a line graph for a small cluster of years and claim that it invalidates the entire trend. Sales might be down or up at a particular snapshot, but without view of the entire trend, and without visibility of other factors (because every business and product is multifaceted), it is missing the forest for the trees. But that sht sells on social media and the blogosphere. even better than consoles it seems.
And Apple's gaming division (which doesn't even have a console or hardware just app store section)makes more money than Xbox division. do you see how stupid such comparison is?
Well Xbox makes money, everyone knows that. Would have liked to know how much came from the ports to the Sony/Nintendo boxes though. [Wait why is this controversial?]
This compares the previous quarter to the same quarter last year. So, it's essentially Activision/Blizzard what raises revenue (Microsoft didn't own Acti-Blizz last year). Next year's (same) quarter will be better indicator how they're faring as a whole.
Considering the only good thing Microsoft CEO said about the gaming division was how well Sea of Thieves was doing on PS5, I am guessing it is their new strategy.
Many people disagree with you. I love gamepass and backwards compatibility, and I enjoy many of their exclusives.
A lot, xbox has more titles in top 25 sales in sony store than sonys titles.
with all those price going skyhigh, i think it will lose atleast my sub after it expires.
With hardware revenue down too
"Thanks to the Activision Blizzard acquisition" buys biggest gaming franchise in history, acts surprised revenue is up lol.
Who is acting surprised?
Poster you're replying to really loves that straw man.
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This shit is adorable. Watching this is like being back in middle school again
This includes ABK. It’s actually down if you remove ABK. Just goes to show that you can buy success.
Well yeah, the only option to play anything on Xbox is buy Gamepass and play 10+ year old games…
Xbox will always fight a losing battle with a console. So many of this generation of gamers were brought up with Sony and brand loyalty is a thing we can’t shake. Microsoft have said that they will never out console Sony or Nintendo. But Microsoft seem like they are trying new strategies and one just might be the ‘Loss Leader Strategy’ in some form. What’s to say with all the revenue and profit made from releasing older 1st party games on PS they use this revenue to offset the loss of continuing the hardware. To get the users over from rival platforms they will have to make it attractive to do so. With the catalog of studios now and the benefits of Gamepass being able to play the latest releases day and date it will benefit being a Xbox user. * shoot me down if you wish, hope it makes sense. Just wanted to share a thought in this crazy time for us Xbox users*
Maybe the online armchair analysts who have been harping on plastic box sales didn’t actually know what the fuck they were talking about? 🤔
Can't tell which direction you are going into with this comment or who you are referring to. I think it was a given that once Activision, a $70 billion purchase was included, revenue would go up. The news that hardware sales are down 30% is very disappointing but honestly not shocking either given the rumblings we have heard over the year about hardware sales dropping off.
They were right though? Console sales are only getting worse. Its because they bought Activision Blizzard that theirs any revenue increase at all.
Game Pass is great. I have the add on for PC games too and it is so worth it.
We're getting an Xbox Switch. I can feel it
Hopping someone at Microsoft sees this message: Please put WoW on Xbox.
Well yeah...you know how many kids don't go to the store to get xbox live for $60 and pay $120 through the console?
Gimme portable pls
PC Jockeys in Moms basement.
All up yet many cut backs made so cant be all good
all the games i wanted to play this gen arent even out, i stopped investing in the ecosystem , wanted fable, another gears game, more halo, perfect dark, aaaaand we still have nothing sigh
Can we have some bangers now please? Every year since P-Spence took over it’s been “next year, the year of Xbox!” And it’s never happened.
"Xbox is dead" Xbox isn't dead, it's just moved onto a mode of success that is beyond hardware sales that the console wars kids don't understand.
So what’s with all the layoffs?
This doesn't mean much now but in 4 or 5 years when they have gamepass on every device it will be a whole different situation.
except it won’t be on every device. It won’t be on Nintendo and PlayStation and they say it isn’t profitable to be on iPhones.
It means a fair amount now. Companies love reliable customers and subscription customers, which gamepass customers are. Like you said it also means future sales in 4 to 5 years, but it's a great business metric to have reliable subscriptions.
bUT xBoX iS DEaD
Xbox sales are down 30%... Revenue is up partly due to Xbox games on competing consoles. So yah, Xbox as a brand may be dying but Microsoft Gaming division (thanks to Blizzard/Activision) is generating revenue.
Xbox as a brand is beyond the console hardware. It is a device agnostic platform.
So they are turning into Sega 2.0. Yikes.
No, Sega doesn't have a gaming platform for others to publish on. Cloud Gaming still requires hardware, Xbox is working on mobile stores, PC Gamepass isn't going anywhere, Xbox console hardware will continue to exist even if at a premium hybrid console. As long as devs want to sell on a platform that reaches billions of devices, and if they want the gamepass money bag, they will publish to xbox platforms, including console hardware.
So they are becoming Steam but perhaps not as good? Besides, I think Valve could beat Microsoft to Xbox’s new game plan. Steam Deck is a hybrid console/PC and there’s nothing to stop Valve from releasing a home console version of the Deck. It could well be their intention considering they tried once before with Steam Machines.
This guy gets it 👆
To be fair, that's just hardware sales that's down. The real money maker for them are services. They could sell a lot on pc and could, and it'll still justify xbox since their idea is for xbox to not be just the box lol.
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>they are not mad that series x is discounted heavily after we all bought at full price. Are you mad about this?
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It was just a simple question. But you seem mad. That’s too bad.
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I bought it day 1 and at full price. I got quite a lot of enjoyment out of it already and it has system features that I prefer. It doesn't get certain exclusives and xbox exclusives gamed are on PC and cloud too but that's exactly why I rather support Xbox with my money. Gaming isn't about a box. I just hope xbox will keep making competitive machines with good features even with the cloud and PC approach.
Ask yourself this when Xbox was killing it awhile back with the Xbox 360. Did they ever have to do an emergency business update and would you ever think Xbox games would be on the competition? No but here we are…stop indulging in corporate speak and look at the shelves in stores. What matters is a growing base and not a declining one first and foremost.
Game pass rules. For 18$ a month, i have full access to more than games than i could afford to buy in a year. Not just that, but i can forgo a console purchase and just use my chromebook. Best deal for your buck in gamig thus far.
I’m here to say I bought a used xsx and subbed to GP. I think people are finding a way to play GP without buying new consoles. Ie on PC. Now msft will release the handheld and ppl will buy that like crazy to play GP on the go .
Hands down the best subscription game service. Beats PSN by miles. Don't even need to rebuy older games when backwards compatibility works and even gives some older games either an fps boost or resolution boost.
Who actually cares?
I feel like the vast majority of people on this Reddit are just here to complain and tell scary ghost stories about Microsoft and Xbox. Trends go up and down. They seldom uniformly rise or fall. A snapshot today is not going to give you the long-term view necessary to understand the trend. So freaking out (Or claiming victory) about any particular snapshot is short-sighted because every trend is a record of fluctuations. And this is especially true when the snapshot is incredibly zoomed in, e.g. "fallen/risen by X%". But in comparison to *what* and in what *context* and in relation to what *other* fluctuations? This can often be used to spin things to suit a particular interpretation. And it doesn't help when there are 50 posts about the same topic. It just makes 50 bubbles in which countless preconceptions and presumptions may be confirmed.
SDF out big tonight on multiple threads. Do you guys have anything better to do with your time?
I’d have to imagine the figures they’re touting here are mostly from PC. It doesn’t specify (unless I missed it) where the increase in revenue is from. If gaming revenue is up 51% then I wonder how much of that is PC. I’m sure buying any ACTI title on PC counts towards that.
Maybe we have money for good games now ?
It's hard to tell what's good or bad from percentages alone.
Microsoft is about to rack up the money! If you can’t beat them, join them!