Microsoft’s latest financial report has revealed that Xbox hardware sales are still dropping.
In fairness, all thee console manufacturer’s are seeing declines in hardware which makes complete sense – both Microsoft and Sony’s machines are 4 years into their life cycle and the Switch is near the end of its – but Microsoft is by far suffering the most.
According to the report, hardware is down 42%. Keep in mind, Microsoft also reported a 31% decline for the financial quarter prior. In other words, Xbox’s just aren’t selling, although it’s impossible to get an accurate view because Microsoft has not reported exact numbers for years now.
The report attempted to combat this bad news by boasting of massive growth in other areas, specifically a 61% rise in Xbox content and services revenue and gaming revenue also being up 44%. However, that growth is something of an illusion since it was primarily driven by the newly acquired Activision-Blizzard. Essentially, almost all of the growth in content and services can be explained by Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, Diablo etc. all being air-dropped straight into the Xbox ecosystem, giving it a huge boost in numbers.
Without that adrenaline shot, it’s difficult to tell how well Xbox would be doing. We will really start to get a better idea over the next few years.
CEO Satya Nadella stated that there are 500 million monthly active Xbox users across all platforms and devices right now and claimed that their upcoming release slate “has never been stronger” coming off of June’s excellent showcase.
She also addressed the success of the Fallout TV show and its impact on the games.
“Finally, we are bringing our IP to new audiences. Fallout, for example, made its debut as a TV show on Amazon Prime this quarter. It was the second most watched title on the platform ever, and hours played on Game Pass for Fallout franchise increased nearly 5x quarter-over-quarter.”
