Last Friday, January 26, Microsoft released their earnings for the second quarter of its 2017 fiscal year. The numbers in the games side of Microsoft continues to lower due to its small percentage of hardware sales – the Xbox One and Xbox One S.
As what the financial reports show, Microsoft has just barely surpassed Wall Street’s expectations with a reported of $6.17 billion (in GAAP) in profits on the $24 billion revenue for the three months ending on the 31st of December.
GamaSutra reported that the revenue sales of the overall game hardware and software have lowered at 3% year after year; noting by Microsoft has attributed this to the “lower Xbox console revenue offset by Xbox software and services revenue growth.”
This means that even with the great sales of the Xbox One S, with some great exclusives last year like Gears of War 4 and Forza Horizon 3, when it was launched, it still didn’t improve the overall year sales of Microsoft’s games hardware and software. The other explanation of the low Xbox console revenue was also because of its price cuts and diminished volume.
However, Microsoft claims that the revenue they got from the Xbox software and services have grown 18% every year; the Xbox Live monthly user count also grew 15% – which is also counted from the Windows 10 and mobile platforms in addition to the Xbox consoles.
As far as we are all concerned, even if the software and services went up by 18%, it’s still not enough to improve the overall sales of Microsoft’s games hardware and software combined. With the lack of exclusives last year, there is also that reason why the Xbox One console sales didn’t increase.
If Project Scorpio is to succeed this year, Microsoft will need to have their exclusives announced as soon as E3 hits this June 2017.
