A gamble that could pay off, or backfire.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
Xbox is pretty much irrelevant at this point and PlayStation will open up a massive player base for Xbox games.
I hate the idea of consoles losing exclusive games, I'd be gutted if Sony or Nintendo started putting their games on whatever willy nilly as you've got to have that special "ooomf" to justify the purchase of each one.
However in Xbox's case they've been heading down this path for years now, not just because of Microsoft's new business goals but because of their own silly decisions. Microsoft buying up two massive publishers paved the way for them to become a huge third party publisher themselves and in years to come more games will come to other consoles
If you think they will stop at just 4 games then you are lying to yourselves
I won't like exclusives for platforms entirely go away because it negs the validity of a purchase.
My thing is, making a game exclusively for one console allows the developers to get closer to to the medal, and get more out of their games than other developers on their platform. That's why first party games no matter the platform or generation have always been a step above everyone else, and have spearheaded technology far ahead of anyone else besides the rare outliers like Rockstar.
That has always been a huge draw for me as a gamer, and it would really suck to see that go away.