Xbox's Gaming Revenue Is Up 51% YoY Following Activision Blizzard Acquisition

Very interesting as someone smart worked out that revenue would be down 4% if it was not for ABK.
So basically they just purchased themselves a revenue increase in ABK.
Guess it makes them look good.

Stating the obvious they just spent 70 billion on one of the biggest gaming companies in the world. That's exactly why they bought them to increase revenue and profit.

Not surprised that hardware is failing as unfortunately people no longer have interest in the brand outside of us already heavily invested. Most will just buy PS6 next generation as just a matter of time until all Xbox exclusives get ported. Another huge mistake by the Microsoft management as means no reason to buy an Xbox.

Won't be long until more third parties don't bother to port games to Xbox and it's quite bad now.

Woah, when you take away the largest third party publisher your revenue goes up, what a shocker!

Good news from Microsoft, will be intresting to see the Gamepass numbers at the end of the year with the 4 AAA First Party exclusives also going to Gamepass day one starting next month.
Not sure why they have still not officially dropped the price of the hardware unless they are waiting to see the effect of the incoming exclusives on the hardware, especially as Sony have No AAA First Party titles coming this year.

@OldGamer999 sorry but that is one of the points of an acquisition. Of course they incorporated a revenue bump into their financials.

For the record, anytime Playstation “purchases” a third party exclusive their revenue goes up too. Their costs go up, sure, but when you are reporting revenue it “makes them look good”.

nothing to show for it though. zzzzzzzzzz

@K1LLEGAL
It’s nice to know they are all looking good then.
Even though I sort of think overall the gaming industry is not as good as it used to be, especially in the very big AAA hitters department.

It’s sometimes seems it is turning into a mobile phone smaller AA games type market on consoles now. Stream this and that and games as a service chasing. And a game can’t release without performance or bug issues.

@OldGamer999 I mean yea it kind of is. Say what you want about Phil Spencer but he is correct that the console market isn’t growing. So these companies will start doing whatever they need to to get a new audience. If that is smaller games or more GAAS then sure.

The only consoles to truly ever break the mould and get that peak market are PS2 (early DVD player), the DS and the Wii (casual). The DS and Wii being on the market at the same time. The Switch can’t even get close to that.

Playstation also has to show growth to its investors hence the PC releases. But if it’s not enough they will have to pivot too.

@OldGamer999 AAA development issues are more down to the Publisher and their 'greed'. We see many Publishers pushing their developers into creating Live Service games, force them to wrap their IP skin around a Live Service Template to 'cash-in' on the low effort/high reward of MTX cosmetics.

Another aspect of Publishers 'greed' is their obvious push to get games out at the earliest opportunity - whether the Game is actually ready and optimised for release or increasingly 'not'. Why? Because it costs money to keep the Devs working on the game until its ready but releasing it will bring in 'Money' - enough to cover ongoing costs of patches/fixes, missing features/content etc.

As for Hardware, Console market hasn't really grown in decades. The 360 did well but PS3 and Wii U weren't as popular as their Predecessors. Now you don't need a 'Series' Xbox as you can be in the Xbox ecosystem, playing all the latest 'Xbox' games via multiple methods. You don't 'need' to upgrade from an XB1 to play - not the 'best' way to play, but it is the cheapest...

Reach is important too - if you only have a £500+ hardware entry price point, you immediately limit your reach to all those who can't or 'unwilling' to spend that much on a 'leisure' item. being able to 'reach' every gamer - even if its on mobiles or platforms you don't own, its getting people into your 'store' where they'll spend time and money on your services, software etc.

If you can sell to 10% of your Audience, 100m Consoles mean about 10m game sales, 50m is only 5m game sales - so only 5-10m to buy MTX, DLC etc. Get 30m+ in the Game across Cloud, Console, PC, that's 30m potential buyers of extras - as well as all the Subscription fees and income from 'outside' your Console Platform.

One of ABK's biggest income makers is Candy Crush and of course WoW is another, neither of which is on 'Console' (yet). Gaming is 'bigger' than just the Consoles and 'Xbox' is too...

Interesting about the hardware side of things, they predicted that hardware would decrease for January - March back in January which naturally turned to be a result of the multiplatform rumours and announcement. Further decrease in April - June makes it seem like the next batch of multiplatform games will be announced in May/June.

Now publish profit v losses. I imagine that's a very different read.

Sorry but I think Xbox should’ve acquired blizzard and go after Ubisoft instead … rather that catalog plus it probably would’ve received way less push back

@BAMozzy

This guy gets it. It's all about reaching the most ppl. That's is every publisher goal.

@TheSimulator

Or they could've utilised the talent they already had but Microsoft seem to be incapable of that and just wants to buy up everything to get by.

@Kooky_Geezer "Blah blah blah, Xbox is failing because they aren't doing what I want them to do, blah, blah, Microsoft doesn't know what they are doing, blah, I bend over for PlayStation blah, blah, my butt hurts, blah, blah, Xbox sucks, blah, its the end of Xbox, blah, blah, blah". Yes, yes, we've heard it a million times already. Nobody cares, we are too busy having fun, enjoying what we have. Meanwhile, I'm watching Sony and Playstation self-destruct and nobody seems to notice.

@K1LLEGAL the Switch sold 139 million as of February this year. They project another 15 million sold this year. I think it has a chance to break the record, depending on when the successor comes to market and how long they keep the old one in production.

@rockodoodle no I agree with you but if they hit PS2’s record, the market still hasn’t grown. Not really, at least not a substantial amount.

@K1LLEGAL guess I didn’t think of it that way- that as a whole, console biz hasn’t really grown…. I guess tablets and cell phones played a big role in that….

Really this is an artificial increase. But, I hope that MS Gaming revenue starts increasing more over time now that studios have completed their pre-MS projects and are now starting to deliver projects that are solely under MS.

@Kooky_Geezer Who cares about hardware? Hardware is just another option for those gamers that want Game Pass in the console market. Microsoft is selling consoles at a loss, they are losing 200$ for every console unit. Hardware is not important, but Game Pass subs growth is the real metric of success. If Microsoft could have all the subs from PC, it would be the most profitable way for them. Console is just another platform for access on Game Pass, nothing more.

Also, multiplatform sales+ Game Pass subs growth is the perfect strategy for XBOX to make a lot of money in all platforms. XBOX has now over 40 studios with a lot of popular Ips and great live service games that make billions of dollars in all platforms. Exclusivity will sabotage these games.