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MS/Xbox Earnings Call for Q1 2022 (Calendar Year)

And PLEASE someone finally tell me if all these figures include sales of Bethesda games
Interesting question, I don't think so otherwise there would've been a big spike in revenue I think, no?

Jesus. I will repeat that slowly, so even you can understand

Xbox service revenue grew despite fact that third party games didn't bring that much money. Which can be probably attributed to underperforming Vanguard.

So that means that
A: first party game like Halo Infinite and FH5 are selling great even 4 months after release
B: those games made people subscribe to GamePass
C: combination of both

Sorry, but it is impossible to explain it more simply.
How do you know they are selling great? There are no numbers of how those games sold or how much Gamepass grew and it's impossible to tell the revenue growth apart since it includes everything, things like Minecraft, microtransactions, etc. I'll just assume that when they don't provide the proper numbers it means that they aren't very impressive otherwise they would make them public.
 
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reksveks

Member
Various individual publisher reports continue to show good growth in MTX/DLC and so whilst units, and therefore revenue of game sales, might decline, the cash cow chugs along nicely. As platform holders take a cut of that too, this needs factoring in.
Not many of the big publishers have shown numbers for this quarter yet afaik. Activision's console revenue was down 31% (including DLC/MTX)

You got others ones who have release Q1 results?

T2 - 16th May
EA - 10th May
Square Enix - 13th May
Ubisoft - 11th May
 
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ByWatterson

Member
4% growth in content seems quite poor given the strong growth in HW and claims of growing market share.

Could suggest that the slowing GP sub growth has slowed further still.

Errr, they're up despite slowed third party sales.

Meaning whatever Gamepass cannibalizes in third party revenue is more than made up for by Gamepass revenue.
 

Ozriel

M$FT
How do you know? GP seems to be growing so slowly now that they don't even update the number of subscribers.

Forza horizon 5 already had a million paying customers before the general launch, and it charted high on Steam for a while.

Microsoft has long asserted that Gamepass subs grow with console sales. So if they’re selling more consoles, you can expect more GP subscribers.

If that includes Bethesda numbers, then this whole financial transcript makes even less sense.

Of course it includes Bethesda.
 
Of course it includes Bethesda.
If it includes Bethesda then these numbers are terrible, no way around it. Looking at the graph of their revenue grow over time you can't even tell that at some point in there they absorbed a $7B dollar publisher.
 
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DNPM4sC.png

:messenger_grinning_sweat:
Not following this. Demos should be free by definition it's just a sample. Game pass has full games so it makes sense for that to cost money. Surely you aren't advocating to be charged for a demo right?
 

Dr Bass

Member
No, you're wrong. From the NPD thread:


So it seems they haven't released any games for the past 9 years.
Dang. I am honored you are so bothered by the fact that someone who plays games on everything thinks Xbox has the weakest game selection because ... it does. If you doubt the whole "the games are coming! Wait until E3!" narrative, just dig through the archives of this site or YouTube. I mean, talk about denying reality.

Also, you realize of course you are referencing a Halo and Forza release when the joke about Xbox is that it's a Halo/Gears/Forza machine. I mean ... you know that right?

Again, more celebration in here of numbers that mean zilch when what people should care about is content. Content, content, content.

I just bought Horizon FW, GT7, and Sifu for my PS5. I got Elden Ring too, but that is available on both, but it's better on PS5 so I got it there. My Switch got a pretty slick MK8 update as well as having a huge amount of cool stuff coming out this year. Too much really. But for Xbox?

Where. Are. The. Games?

I know Starfield is coming out later this year, and currently that's the only game I'm really looking forward to but ... let's hope it's good. Fingers crossed. I honestly hope the game is amazing.

So by the time Acti Blizz deal will close Microsoft will earn more then 68.7 billion dollars in profits.

Insane
Not from gaming. That's why people say the company is subsidizing their gaming division. Because they are.

It's the same old song and dance. "Phil Spencer has turned around Xbox!" And I say ... how? Why? Where? There is nothing to freaking play! Eh I don't get it. If you are a fan, demand quality, don't engage in apologetics for the company taking your money. Talk about Stockholm syndrome.

50b per quarter in revenue. Basically 200b per year. 20b in profits. Basically 80b per year. Crazy. More acquisitions :messenger_fire:

Xbox aside, cloud growth of 32% is impressive.
Seriously, do you guys think MS exists as a software company to subsidize gamer habits? I honestly don't get this perspective. Make profits on Office so they can buy video game companies?

-----------

Great quarter for Microsoft as a whole.
 

MScarpa

Member
If it includes Bethesda than these numbers are terrible, no way around it. Looking at the graph of their revenue grow over time you can't even tell that at some point in there they absorbed a $7B dollar publisher.
Look man, we know you don't own an Xbox, or sub to Gamepass so unless you own MS stock, which we ALL know you don't, just leave it alone. This doesn't affect you in anyway. If you want to start wars. Please go elsewhere. Thank you.
 
Look man, we know you don't own an Xbox, or sub to Gamepass so unless you own MS stock, which we ALL know you don't, just leave it alone. This doesn't affect you in anyway. If you want to start wars. Please go elsewhere. Thank you.
I subscribe to Gamepass on PC if you must know (every once in a while, not all the time, If a game I want enters Gamepass and it's cheaper for me to play it there I subscribe to play it). Why post these things in the forum if people aren't allowed to discuss or question them? We should just blindly cheer them?

How doesn't a company that is aggressively buying other gaming publishers trying to push the traditional gaming market towards a subscription future doesn't affect me as a gamer? Just because I don't own an Xbox? I own a platform where all of their games are released on as well.
 
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Faithless83

Banned
Not following this. Demos should be free by definition it's just a sample. Game pass has full games so it makes sense for that to cost money. Surely you aren't advocating to be charged for a demo right?
Both are serving the purpose of "try and buy if you really like it".
Based on the "Gamepass users buy more games than non gamepass ones". yet no one can prove this.

It's a tier on a service that I find useful. Probably the reason it isn't free to everyone is because there is a compensation for it by Sony.
Same way Plus games have compensations on download/playtime.

Every 30+ games will have it, a great way to add value, IMO more than what gamepass is offering today.
 

Dolodolo

Member
Look man, we know you don't own an Xbox, or sub to Gamepass so unless you own MS stock, which we ALL know you don't, just leave it alone. This doesn't affect you in anyway. If you want to start wars. Please go elsewhere. Thank you.
Oh god, forgive the man for his curiosity.
How dare he just want specific numbers and quotes.

You are absolutely right. More meticulous people should just disappear and enjoy the magnificence of Phil Spencer
 

chonga

Member
Not many of the big publishers have shown numbers for this quarter yet afaik. Activision's console revenue was down 31% (including DLC/MTX)

You got others ones who have release Q1 results?

T2 - 16th May
EA - 10th May
Square Enix - 13th May
Ubisoft - 11th May
Yes I'm talking about the most recent figures, in general trend terms.

As well do keep in mind as I said, they claim to have increased market share - so when you say US units are down this is lessened if you are gaining share.

If 100 units are sold and you have 25% share then you have 25 sales on your platform.

If the next time round only 90 are sold but you now have 33% share then you have 30 sales on your platform.

Obviously we would need hard figures to know what's what, but you can see therefore how it is possible at least to actually gain even if the overall market declines. Furthermore Microsoft also likes to claim that Game Pass users go on to buy more games than non-Game Pass users. This should compound the market share gains.
 

Chukhopops

Member
Dang. I am honored you are so bothered by the fact that someone who plays games on everything thinks Xbox has the weakest game selection because ... it does. If you doubt the whole "the games are coming! Wait until E3!" narrative, just dig through the archives of this site or YouTube. I mean, talk about denying reality.

Also, you realize of course you are referencing a Halo and Forza release when the joke about Xbox is that it's a Halo/Gears/Forza machine. I mean ... you know that right?

Again, more celebration in here of numbers that mean zilch when what people should care about is content. Content, content, content.

I just bought Horizon FW, GT7, and Sifu for my PS5. I got Elden Ring too, but that is available on both, but it's better on PS5 so I got it there. My Switch got a pretty slick MK8 update as well as having a huge amount of cool stuff coming out this year. Too much really. But for Xbox?

Where. Are. The. Games?

I know Starfield is coming out later this year, and currently that's the only game I'm really looking forward to but ... let's hope it's good. Fingers crossed. I honestly hope the game is amazing.


Not from gaming. That's why people say the company is subsidizing their gaming division. Because they are.

It's the same old song and dance. "Phil Spencer has turned around Xbox!" And I say ... how? Why? Where? There is nothing to freaking play! Eh I don't get it. If you are a fan, demand quality, don't engage in apologetics for the company taking your money. Talk about Stockholm syndrome.


Seriously, do you guys think MS exists as a software company to subsidize gamer habits? I honestly don't get this perspective. Make profits on Office so they can buy video game companies?

-----------

Great quarter for Microsoft as a whole.
You still think MS gaming activity is losing money? That’s pathetic at this point.
Both are serving the purpose of "try and buy if you really like it".
Based on the "Gamepass users buy more games than non gamepass ones". yet no one can prove this.

It's a tier on a service that I find useful. Probably the reason it isn't free to everyone is because there is a compensation for it by Sony.
Same way Plus games have compensations on download/playtime.

Every 30+ games will have it, a great way to add value, IMO more than what gamepass is offering today.
2-hour demos being higher value than full games is not a take I thought I would ever read. MS results threads always deliver…
 
Best non-holiday quarter for Xbox.

Sounds like another big indicator on how well Phil Spencer has done, come Starfield in the holiday season you would expect records to be broken again.
If they are including Bethesda numbers how it would not be the biggest non-holiday quarter?

Yes, that new big (UNRELEASED BETHESDA GAME FROM LAST YEAR) really didn't do well at all.
Bethesda doesn't have only a single game.
 
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ByWatterson

Member
If they are including Bethesda numbers how it would not be the biggest non-holiday quarter?

Because they've had a ton of quarters in their past with many more current gen consoles out there. Meaning that even environments where more Xbox games were sold to more Xbox consumers were not as good as an environment with fewer Xboxes, but nearly all of them as Gamepass subscribers.

Those quarters should have been bigger than this one, but they weren't.

It's not like Bethesda as part of Gamepass is going to turn into a revenue machine on its own, with no new games coming out to boot. This is entirely a question of "How much did Gamepass grow?". The answer appears to be "a lot" and Bethesda being a part of it surely grew those numbers. I know I starting thinking about jumping in when they put Bethesda on Gamepass.
 
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This gen gone to be like PS3 vs 360 days i been saying that since day 1 Sony is not gone to steamroll Xbox this gen

I would hope not. If you paid close to 80 billion dollars in acquisitions, and subsidized GP to death, the least you should aim for is to be very competitive.
 

Faithless83

Banned
You still think MS gaming activity is losing money? That’s pathetic at this point.
They are not earning money though. Gamepass is sustainable, not profitable.
2-hour demos being higher value than full games is not a take I thought I would ever read. MS results threads always deliver…
For EVERY GAME AT LAUNCH, instead of full games that I'm not always interested in?
QuickKnobbyImperatorangel-max-1mb.gif

Yeah I think so.
 
By having an install base a fraction of the size of the Xbox 360.
You think the 360 has any chance of beating revenue numbers from 2022? You guys are crazy.
MS completed the acquisition before end of Q1 2021 so the numbers would have been included then too whats your point
This is my point:


You can't even tell that somewhere in there they acquired another publisher worth $7B.
 
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Godot25

Banned
Not from gaming. That's why people say the company is subsidizing their gaming division. Because they are.

It's the same old song and dance. "Phil Spencer has turned around Xbox!" And I say ... how? Why? Where? There is nothing to freaking play! Eh I don't get it. If you are a fan, demand quality, don't engage in apologetics for the company taking your money. Talk about Stockholm syndrome.
I'm sure everyone in the world is crying because Microsoft decided to finally have their financial might behind Xbox division for first time...

And yeah.. Spencer gets the credit because he convinced Nadella to stay in gaming business in first place. And since he is head of Xbox he deserves credit when he does good stuff and he gets blame when things would go to shit.

I'm sure Sony never used corporate money outside PS division, right? I'm sure they went through entire PS3 generation by own 😂😂
 
The 360 was pushing close to 90 million sales, nothing crazy about it.
That's not revenue, the entire gaming market has grown since then. MS is now a much bigger publisher and a lot more invested on PC/Cloud/Mobile/Services, that all gets factored into the revenue number.
 
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Riky

$MSFT
Wow. Turns out 250 million computers + 70 million xbox one + 12 million Xbox Series is less than 86 million Xbox 360

amazing

You saying MGS didn't publish PC games before this gen? Sure about that?

Also Xbox One never got near 60 million let alone 70, if you're going to rant about figures at least get your own right.
 

Jaybe

Member
This is 2022 CYQ1 vs 2021 CYQ1, so to me. 4% growth in content and services is actually rather poor. Seems like an overall drag on MSFT’s performance as most given all More Personal Computing segments grew faster. And MPC lags Azure by a lot. They had spent substantially on Game Pass for third party and released Fozra and Halo and the Bethesda catalog. Investment in PC. How much higher is Game Pass vs last year? What are the subs count? Presumably install base is a fair amount higher over the years , why isn’t content/services keeping pace? Interesting that third party is down as well with major hit Elden Ring released this quarter. Need to watch this to see if game pass subscribers buy third party games to the same degree as prior. Still glad the financials are up and they are fully committed for completion’s sake.
 

Riky

$MSFT
That's not revenue, the entire gaming market has grown since then. MS is now a much bigger publisher and a lot more invested on PC/Cloud/Mobile/Services, that all gets factored into the revenue number.

Which is why with half the hardware sales they are having record quarters, done one hell of a job.
Predicting the 30 million Gamepass number around Starfield.
 
You saying MGS didn't publish PC games before this gen? Sure about that?

Also Xbox One never got near 60 million let alone 70, if you're going to rant about figures at least get your own right.
MS during the 360 days was very antagonistic to PC games, everybody that played on PC at the time knows that.
 
I would hope not. If you paid close to 80 billion dollars in acquisitions, and subsidized GP to death, the least you should aim for is to be very competitive.
What? are you saying the PS3 vs 360 were not competitive?
so by me saying this gen of Xbox Series vs PS5 will be like the PS3 vs 360 days
means it will be competitive
 
Seriously, do you guys think MS exists as a software company to subsidize gamer habits? I honestly don't get this perspective. Make profits on Office so they can buy video game companies?
Kinda. Basically they get 20b in cash per quarter. And they can spend it on whatever. Including gaming.
 
Which is why with half the hardware sales they are having record quarters, done one hell of a job.
Predicting the 30 million Gamepass number around Starfield.
Wasn't 30m the number Xbox fans were sure Gamepass was at when the Take Two CEO suggested that? So they are going to arrive at that more than a year later? Talk about moving the goal post.

So did they publish PC games or not?
Barely, they closed down Ensemble and launched almost every game exclusively on Xbox. How do you now know that? They even went multiple years without any release on PC during the 360 days. After Gears of War in 2007 their next game on PC was Fable 3 in 2011 (unless you want to count Game Room or Mojang Tales whatever those are).
 
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Dolodolo

Member
You saying MGS didn't publish PC games before this gen? Sure about that?

Also Xbox One never got near 60 million let alone 70, if you're going to rant about figures at least get your own right.
Don't pretend to be an idiot. You perfectly understand what I'm talking about.

The income tab says growth from Gamepass and money from their 1p games.

I remind you, especially for you, that Gamepass is on PC, and Microsoft games (Bethesda) are also on PC.
And all the Xbox games, at this point in time, except for MSFT, GhostWire, Deathloop, are on the good old Xbox one.

If I wanted to be a clown like you, I could generally write that the growth of the Xbox is due to the high sales of the last two Bethesda games on Ps5, but this has nothing to do with reality, so I will not :)
 

MarkMe2525

Gold Member
Very uninteresting info, almost nothing to do with gaming. 6% growth in gaming revenue and 14% growth in hardware revenue?

No info on game sales, sub numbers, hardware units, etc. Boring.


Didn't they just release Forza Horizon and Halo? Two of their biggest IPs?
Because investors just care about that cash flow. I agree that it would be interesting to know those things, I just don't think that this was the forum for them to go into those specifics.
 

Riky

$MSFT
Wasn't 30m the number Xbox fans were sure Gamepass was at when the Take Two CEO suggested that? So they are going to arrive that more than a year later? Talk about moving the goal post.

I wouldn't be concerned with fans if I was you, it doesn't mean anything. I think 25 million was the last number and that was beginning of the year, add in a non holiday record quarter like this, yeah I think 30 million before the first party output even hits top gear is on the cards.
 
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