Xbox Hardware Revenue Up 232% Thanks To 'Continued Demand' For Xbox Series X|S

Microsoft has adopted a really great strategy this time, drop few stocks at a time in different countries rather than pushing everything to the US market just to achieve some silly records. This way many people (europe, middle east, asia) are buying Xbox SX when the other console is out of stock. Gamepass subscription also serves as a good selling point for the retailers.

I feel gamepass gives people a cheap means of gaming. "No console, no problem. Grab gamepass and a bluetooth controller and play on your phone. Or use the touch screen." Eventually, they may get a console.

This is to be expected as its a new gen meaning console sales are up, if anything it shows how abysmal the xbox one was if the series S/X sales are 232% higher than last years sales even with console shortages

@UltimateOtaku91 exactly, the Xbox One was dead in the water this time last year and a new console launch should be doing much better numbers. Looking on Twitter you'd think this was some massive shock and completely out of the ordinary

I think Microsoft got it bang on with the game pass ultimate proving hundred of hours for a smaller monthly fee than Netflix. Can’t complain here.

Series X is my first Microsoft console so I guess there are dozens of people like me. I bought it for two reasons, Bethesda acquisition was first thing which made me consider it (my favourite studio), second and decisive, I tried game pass xcloud on phone.

Need more stock! If I could get one I would!

Really great to see PlayStation and Xbox showing such great sales figures.

Console gaming is dead, they said 😏

@Jacko11 for me console gaming has never really died off, plus the pandemic over the last year has boosted console sales, I mean one look at the Nintendo switch sales and you can see consoles are nowhere near dead

@UltimateOtaku91 I know that, but “experts” have long said PS3/360 would be the last generation, same with PS4/Xbone.

Now we’re here, and our medium is still thriving

Some pretty decent numbers there. Still, with roughly 4 million consoles sold vs almost 8 million consoles sold by Sony, they'll still have to put some more effort into it.

Xbox Series X console has been a great experience so far. Did the 3 months of Gamepass for $1 which just expired, gave me an opportunity to try out a bunch of games before purchasing them at a discount. Excellent job Microsoft!

With sales sky high even with shortages for all 3 companies (and OMG that PS5 sales numbers thread on PS is so hard to read the comments section....I had to log myself out to prevent myself from posting things that would have spammed my inbox ) I still find myself wondering if this is a current boom that suddenly gaming is permanent and forever huge - just a massive, massive boom, if it's just a pandemic surge that everyone runs out and buys a gaming console because it seems like the thing to do and by this time next year they forget about it in the closet (like hoarding TP), or if it's mostly FOMO driven in combination with the prior two at this point precisely because they're scarce.

Kind of like GameStop stocks I can't help but see this ends in a massive sales cliff somewhere in the coming years where all this newfound growth and enthusiasm craters when that massive new market moves onto greener pastures.

The pandemic will surely play a hand in it aswell more time indoors not being able to go out & socialise

@SegataSanshiro Yeah, I mean gaming was growing quite a bit in general already, it's not impossible that suddenly it's just seen a huge spike that will endure. But I tend to see sudden sales spikes of that magnitude as a probable anomaly and not something you bank on. Like banking on the Wii's "blue ocean" until it cratered. This isn't quite the same situation as the geriatric fitness fad that Wii was, but the mass market, unlike dedicated gaming enthusiasts that are pretty reliable in sales, is extremely fickle and moves from one thing to the next as social media guides them. This year games were cool and they were home and not doing much else. Maybe that endures a few years as the pandemic isn't really going away any time soon no matter what big pharma and economy weary politicians convince everyone in the short term, but it isn't going to endure the entire console generation. Maybe they've built a ton of "new gamers" where Wii failed to due to captivity during this time and that means steady sales at this level from now on. In my mind, though, it's still an anomaly, and whether it's this year or 4 years from now, that big market will just move onto the next cool thing and stop buying games so much.

The worry there is that executives tend to have bricks for brains and will have already spent the next 15 years of budget on projected growth and expansion at this level (see also: US retail industry in the 1985-1995 era that spent back then their projected earnings for the next 40 years on leveraged buyouts and real estate deals on the assumption they would remain at that rate of growth forever......then sales slumped and they all defaulted, leading to the overarching reason we have only a handful of mega retailers remaining, and why the US is the only country where all the malls are dying. Malls in particular are the worst. They assumed 80's & 90's growth, and remortgaged the real estate at the insane interest rates of the 90's to refit all the buildings and "modernize them". When sales and the economy slowed, the bank holds their feet to the fire that every square foot is worth $x, otherwise they're underwater in paper debt....so supply & demand went out the window and they have to charge rents that are wholly out of step with the real return value on the space. They can't charge a dollar less because then the bank devalues the property, and their other assets leveraged against their paper value then lose their collateral and ALL their creditors come knocking for immediate payment that they never actually had, they just calculated they would back in the 90's if YoY growth remained static. So you have whole malls with empty spaces that no business in their right mind would pay because they have to pretend the space could potentially pull that value in. Then, obviously, they tear the place down because nobody will ever actually rent it at impractical rates. )

So when I see the digital version of a pandemic induced industry spike in gaming, and see companies increasing spend accordingly.....in my head I'm seeing that black line fall vertical to red sometime in 2024 and wondering what happens to the industry.

This certainly seems to 'contradict' the sustainability of Game Pass. In the past 4 months or so, GP has grown by 5m customers - that's incredible and despite a 'shortage' of big 'Software' releases due to the Global pandemic and countless' delays, Revenue from services (inc GP) and software sales has grown 32% - I can't recall a 'first party' release in this time either.

Surely, if GP was costing MS significant 'losses', especially after making some 'high profile' deals to bring 3rd Party games to GP on day 1 - Outriders, MLB21... there is still financial growth. As for the 7bn paid to Bethesda, well MS made that back the following month across all its businesses but I don't know if this factored in to their announcement.

To me, this seems to 'justify' Microsofts decision to 'really' make a concerted effort with their Gaming division and choices. There was sectors in the gaming community questioning whether MS were right to release these consoles - either the S because of its 'specs' or both without a blockbuster AAA game like Halo Infinite, or Game Pass and 'giving away' games on day 1 and of course, all their games releasing on PC. So many sectors saying why buy an Series S/X when all those games are on XB1 or PC and 'no' big blockbusters yet either. Losses of revenue for all those 'game sales' lost because of Game Pass, buying up all these studio's and still very little to show for it...

Its looking good for Gaming in general right now - lets hope things improve further as lockdowns/restrictions end, games get finished and release and of course, hardware too becomes much more readily available...

@ThanosReXXX
In order to accomplish what exactly? Are we still doing this "units sold" nonsense?

@gingataisen Well, gain traction, market share-wise. They're still far behind. Mind you, I'm no Sony fan, not even close, but those numbers ARE the facts that we're currently faced with, so regardless of how well they're doing with backwards compatibility and their GamePass efforts, Microsoft is still quite a ways off from getting where they need to be to beat the competition.

Unless of course, like Nintendo, they're perfectly comfortable being where they are right now, not looking to become the leading platform, but personally, I can't imagine that being the case. Guess we'll find out at some point in time.

P.S.

And yes, "we" are still doing this units sold nonsense. Well, at least: if by "we" you mean rabid Sony fans who are pointing towards these numbers to prove why their platform is king...