Game Pass already has over 18 million Vortex subscribers
Yesterday evening, Microsoft published financial results for the second quarter of fiscal year 2021 (October-December 2020), which for the first time reflects the launch of the new generation of Xbox. Given the circumstances surrounding the coronavirus pandemic, the gaming segment recorded general growth last year, which is of course reflected in Microsoft’s results, and it is clearly not an obstacle that the new Xboxes did not start until early November. Satya Nadella, CEO of the company, said that revenues from hardware sales increased by 86 percent compared to the same period last year, and that console sales accounted for a large share. Thanks to them, Microsoft broke the absolute quarterly record in revenues from the gaming segment by reaching the $ 5 billion mark.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella:
– Series X|S launch moved the most devices in an Xbox launch month
– gaming revenue hit $5B, the highest-ever for a quarter
– $2B in revenue from third-party game sales
– Xbox Live hit 100M monthly active users
– 18M Xbox Game Pass subscribers.— Eddie Makuch (@EddieMakuch) January 26, 2021
In addition to hardware, Microsoft was also successful in the field of software and related services, where the company recorded $ 2 billion in revenue from the sale of third party titles and again shifted the numbers of Game Pass and Xbox Live subscribers. In the first-mentioned service, the number of users increased from 15 million to 18 million from the previous quarter, with more than 100 million players actively signing up for Xbox Live subscriptions in the last quarter. However, despite the disparity in the user base, Microsoft mentions Game Pass in particular, and recent events clearly indicate that in the gaming Netflixu sees huge potential. This is, of course, an attempt to increase the price of an Xbox Live Gold subscription in an effort to introduce the Game Pass as a more suitable alternative for current Xbox owners, which, however, has failed in an aggressive and unexpected form (at least for now). However, it is likely that Microsoft will continue to try to bring tens of millions of players to the Game Pass and not just reach new customers.
If we were to go back to the new generation of the Xbox console, Satya Nadella first stated that in terms of gaming device sales, they recorded the best quarter in the history of the entire company. CFO Amy Hood subsequently confirmed that Microsoft expects strong demand for the Xbox Series X and S in the coming quarter, but immediately added that it will most likely not meet the offer. Hardware delivery is a problem for the entire gaming segment, and Microsoft does not currently want to share any information about when and how many consoles will be available again. This position should apply until the end of the current quarter on March 31, but this does not automatically mean that on April 1, stores will be filled with new pieces of consoles. However, unique sales promotions and messages from people waiting to be delivered with pre-orders cannot go unnoticed – a few pieces appear here and there, if we are talking mainly about stores in the United States. However, there is still a problem with traffickers and the so-called scalperywho abuse any opportunity to get to the consoles in large volumes whenever they are available somewhere and then it is much more expensive to sell to those who did not get.
