Microsoft has hit a rough patch of late amidst a lack of major first party releases for Xbox and reports of widespread layoffs across the company. The company recently revealed its quarterly fiscal results for 2022’s Holiday quarter (October-December), and those results are somewhat mixed as well.
On one hand, the company has reported record highs for monthly active users and Game Pass subscribers during the quarter. Other metrics such as game streaming hours and monthly active devices also enjoyed all-time peaks. During the quarter, Xbox saw a record high of over 120 million monthly active users. Numbers for Game Pass subscribers weren’t shared. At last count, as of a year ago, the service had 25 million subscribers.
At the same time, Microsoft’s gaming division saw a decrease in revenue. Gaming revenue for the quarter was down 13% year-over-year, while overall Xbox content and services revenue fell by 12%. The company attributes this to “declines in first-party content and lower monetization in third-party content”.
Q4 of 2021 saw Microsoft releasing major titles such as Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite, while Q4 2022 was significantly lighter on major releases, so the fall in revenue compared to the previous year doesn’t come as too much of a surprise.
Over the coming months, the company has a number of major first party titles in the pipeline, including the likes of Starfield, Redfall, and Forza Motorsport– many of which will be showcased later today at Xbox and Bethesda Developer_Direct.