Xbox Reveals Earnings Post-Starfield, and It's (Mostly) Good News

ign.com:

Microsoft has just shared its first quarter results for the 2024 fiscal year, and it's mostly good news for Xbox. Following the long-anticipated release of Starfield, Xbox has broadly seen an increase in overall gaming revenue despite a decline in hardware.

In it press release, Microsoft confirmed that Xbox content and services, which include the gaming subscription service Xbox Game Pass, have seen a revenue increase of 13%. It is not entirely surprising for those following Xbox, as last month released its most highly anticipated first-party game of the year, Starfield, which hit 10 million players in just three weeks, becoming the biggest launch in Bethesda Game Studios' history. And a few months prior, Microsoft slightly increased the price of its gaming service.

While no mention of it in the earnings report, it is worth pointing out this is the first earnings report Microsoft has published since it successfully acquired Call of Duty maker Activision Blizzard a few weeks ago, with Microsoft planning to bring a massive catalog of Activision Blizzard games to Xbox Game Pass starting next year.

Unfortunately, not all of it is good news for Xbox earnings-wise, as Microsoft disclosed that Xbox hardware revenue declined by 7%. However, it should be noted that Xbox hardware was not the only thing that decreased, as Microsoft confirmed that devices (such as the Surface products) saw a revenue decline of 22%.

While there is no direct explanation for the decline in Xbox hardware sales in the quarter, it is worth pointing out that last month, several highly confidential documents from Microsoft surfaced online. One of those documents includes Microsoft is planning to release mid-generation model refreshes of both the Xbox Series