Microsoft has best “gaming revenue” quarter ever

Hardware sales might’ve been down, but Microsoft posted some monster numbers anyway in 2018, thanks to games and Xbox Live.

Rocking

First, yes, hardware sales were down for the Xbox company. Sales fell some 19% year over year during Microsoft’s second fiscal quarter in 2018, when compared against the same time in 2017.

Honestly, that’s kind of expected at this point. The Xbox One is getting a little long in the tooth, and it’s pretty well known that there’s a new generation right around the corner. Xbox’ Phil Spencer has said as much.

So there probably isn’t that large of a group of people looking to buy in at this point. And anyway, the drop there is more than made up for in the rise elsewhere.

Microsoft reported to investors that they saw a huge increase in software and services in the second quarter. How much of a raise? 31 percent. That saw Xbox overall revenue balloon to $4.23 billion.

That’s mighty impressive, especially since the company didn’t really debut much in the way of new exclusives. It’s important to figure in though, that including “services” in the category means that Microsoft is counting both Xbox Live Gold and Games Pass.

The Xbox’ ‘unlimited’ gaming subscription service, Games Pass has been a hit for them. Maybe a bigger one than anyone realizes. That certainly bodes well for the future of that platform, when figuring what’ll be offered on successive consoles.

All told, it seems as though Microsoft is looking to finish out this generation strong. That’s a very good thing to see, since it certainly didn’t start that way.

More numbers and info via the link below.

Source: MCV