For the first time in awhile we have received some definitive numbers from Microsoft CE0 Satya Nadella about how Game Pass is doing, and it's quite a big number.
Today Microsoft released their quarterly and yearly fiscal results. At the follow up finance call Nadella took the time to discuss some numbers for all of Microsoft's businesses. Xbox has been a topic of conversation a lot for the company and we now know that Xbox's main subscription service, Xbox Game Pass, now brings in "nearly 5 billion" in annual revenue for the company.
Unfortunately we didn't get an updated number on how many users are subscribed, but the revenue itself is an eye popping number. The last time we received a firm user number was back in February of 2024 which was 34 million subscribers. We have seen unconfirmed numbers of 35+ million since.
Overall the gaming division brought in $23.45 billion in revenue for the fiscal year which ended in June. This means Game Pass accounted for somewhere around 21% of all Xbox related revenue for the year. The 23.45 billion number means a 2 billion increase on last year's results.
Everything Up Except Hardware
Overall gaming revenue was up 10% year over year thanks to strong software sales and game pass results. Content & Services were up
Content and services were up 16% as well and Xbox now sees 500 million active users every month across all devices. Xbox has recently begun to ship more and more games on rival platforms causing a significant increase in revenue.
"We are now the top publisher on both Xbox and PlayStation this quarter," said Nadella on an earnings call today. Indeed 6 of the top 10 selling games last quarter on PlayStation were owned by Microsoft.
Games such as Oblivion Remastered, Forza Horizon 5, Doom The Dark Ages and Indiana Jones all recently shipped on PlayStation with more on the way. Both Hellblade 2 and Gears Of War Reloaded will ship to the platform next month with more likely to follow.
The one thing that is in the negatives however is Xbox hardware which is down 25% year over year. How much of that decline is a result of their change in strategy remains to be seen, but it's safe to say it is part of it. With the next generation around the corner we will have to see how it all unfolds.
Of course all of this comes with the backdrop of more job cuts. Earlier this month we saw Microsoft cut 9,000 jobs, with a chunk of them coming from the Xbox division. As revenues soar it's a shame to see jobs continue to get cut. Hopefully this will be the end, but sadly we doubt it.
Looking ahead to fiscal Q1 2025 Microsoft CFO Amy Hood is projecting single digit declines in both services and content as well as overall revenue for Xbox.
