Microsoft is hosting its quarterly financial conference call for investors and analysts and chief executive officer Satya Nadella and chief financial officer Amy Hood talked about the Xbox business.
Nadella claimed leadership in North America among next-gen (actually current-gen) consoles for three quarters in a row, mentioning that Microsoft sold more consoles life-to-date than any previous generation of Xbox.
He also revealed that 4 million people have streamed Fortnite on Xbox Cloud Gaming, and 1 million among them were new to the Xbox ecosystem.
“We offer the best value in the gaming industry. Our Xbox Game Pass Subscription Service includes access to hundreds of games and Xbox Series S is the most affordable next-generation console. We sold more consoles life to date than any previous generation of Xbox, and have been the market leader in North America for three quarters in a row amongst next-gen consoles.
And with Xbox Cloud Gaming, we are bringing games to new ene points. Players now can stream Xbox games on Samsung Smart TVs.
And we partnered with epic games to make Fortnite available for free via the browser. Over 4 million. People have streamed, the game to date, including over 1 million who were new to our ecosystem.”
Hood prefaced the reveal of the outlook by mentioning that it does not include the impact of the acquisition of Activision, which Microsoft still expects to close by the end of this fiscal year (March 2023).
Gaming revenue for the current quarter (between July and September 2022) is expected to decline in the low-to-mid single digits driven by decline in first-party content partly offset by the growth of Game Pass subscribers and consoles.
Xbox Content and services revenue is expected to decline in the low-to-mid single digits as well.
If you’re interested in Microsoft’s financial performance (especially in regards to the Xbox business) you can check out our dedicated article from earlier today.