Since you obviously cherry-picked only the positive point in the article, I’ll provide the counterpoint to the debate.
“Microsoft’s latest financial results reveal that Xbox console sales are down a calamitous 29% over Christmas, with Call Of Duty boosting Game Pass by only a fraction.”
“But just as Starfield had little to no affect on Game Pass numbers neither did Black Ops 6, with Microsoft’s results showing an increase of just 2%. At the same time hardware sales fell by 29% and overall gaming revenue was down 7%, over the vital October to December quarter of last year.”
“…the underlying problem is that console sales continue to freefall and without that Microsoft’s games business is little more than just Activision with a new hat on.”
“Microsoft boss Satya Nadella tried to make the best of the results in the company’s earnings call, with some very carefully cherry-picked stats, such as PC Game Pass subscriptions being up 30%.”
“…although it’s impossible to know for sure as Microsoft still refuses to provide figures for subscriber numbers or console sales, which tells its own story.”
“Nadella didn’t address any of the negative sales results or give any indication of what was going to be done about falling console sales and their impact on Game Pass subscriptions. Although it’s worth noting that the weak console sales results from 2023 are what precipitated the current attempts to embrace multiformat publishing.”
“The problem…is that the majority of Game Pass subscribers are Xbox console owners and with hardware sales bottoming out there is very little capacity for future growth.”
