Xbox revenue hits six-year slump despite Game Pass soaring to new heights

The latest batch of quarterly reports and earnings from Microsoft reveals that Xbox has seen both some major positives and negatives these last few months, with Game Pass sales better than ever despite overall revenue for Xbox hitting a major low-point.

Microsoft has been undergoing major changes in the past few weeks, the company reportedly laying off over 10,000 staff members. Many of which were part of some major gaming studios such as 343 – who developed the Halo franchise – as well as Bethesda.

During the most latest earnings report, the company said on January 24 that Xbox content and services revenue was down 12% for the quarter. Similarly, Xbox hardware revenue fell 13% in comparison to the same period in 2022. These numbers reportedly the lowest for the console in six years.

“We are committed to helping our customers use our platforms and tools to do more with less today and innovate for the future in the new era of AI.” – Satya Nadella

Read the full Microsoft’s Q2 earnings release here: https://t.co/04GZeV9mSb

— Microsoft (@Microsoft) January 24, 2023

However, Microsoft did express that this could be a result of coming off the back of “a strong prior year comparable, with declines in first-party content and lower monetization in third-party content, partially offset by growth in Xbox Game Pass subscriptions”.

Xbox Game Pass reportedly subscriptions better than ever

Despite overall revenue being down, Xbox Game Pass subscriptions have in fact hit new heights for the gaming company. In the same earning call, CEO Satya Nadella claimed Xbox saw “new highs for Game Pass” during this past quarter.

“In gaming, we continued to pursue our ambition to give players more choice, to play great games wherever, whenever, and however they want…We saw new highs for Game Pass subscriptions, game streaming hours, and monthly active devices. And monthly active users surpassed a record 120 million during the quarter.”

Nadella then added that Microsoft  “continues to invest to add value to Game Pass,” explaining how “this quarter we partnered with Riot Games to make the company’s PC and mobile games, along with premium content, available to subscribers.”

The CEO then finally rounded off the discussion by revealing how Microsoft and Xbox “are energized by our upcoming line-up of triple-A launches including exciting new titles from ZeniMax and Xbox Game Studios.”

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