Microsoft has released its financial report for the last quarter of 2021, and Xbox shows some pretty strong numbers.
The video games segment was up 8% on the year-ago results with $5.43 billion. Hardware sales are also up 4%, although there is a shortage of parts to mention. There was a 10% improvement in digital services, mainly thanks to (Xbox) Game Pass.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, “The big bets we’ve made across content, community, and cloud over the past few years are paying off. We saw record engagement as well as revenue this quarter. [Xbox] Game Pass has more than 25 million subscribers across PC and console. Our differentiated content is driving the service’s growth, and we released new AAA titles this holiday to rave reviews and record usage. Eighteen million have played Forza Horizon 5 to date, and more than 20 million have played Halo Infinite, making it the biggest Halo launch in history. With our planned acquisition of Activision Blizzard announced last week, we’re investing to make it easier for people to play great games wherever, whenever, and however they want and also shape what comes next for gaming as platforms as the metaverse develop.”
Jason Schreier, writing for Bloomberg, says that at a minimum, the following three Call of Duty games should still be multiplatform because of the deals that have been struck in the past. Thus, this year’s Infinity Ward game, reportedly called Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II, the Treyarch title (the team is known for Black Ops), and the next major iteration of Call of Duty: Warzone should all be on PlayStation 5. Of course, following the example of Netflix, it will be commercially crucial for the Redmond-based company to “lock Call of Duty into Game Pass”, as this move would allow the IP to sell subscriptions.
And on the Xbox Era podcast, we heard from one of the presenters, Shpeshal Ed, that another Microsoft franchise is getting a treatment similar to Halo: The Master Chief Collection: there would be games in a collection in one place, and it could arrive sometime in 2023. According to Tom Warren writing for The Verge, it could be Gears of War (“the gears are turning on the rumour”).
So things are looking up for Microsoft…
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