Microsoft has announced that Game Pass has hit almost $5 billion in revenue over the last fiscal year, with 500 million active users. In fact, the whole of Microsoft has just reported annual revenue of $76.4 billion, up 18 percent on the previous year. These figures are being announced less than a month after the company fired 9,000 employees and in the year it shuttered multiple gaming studios.
Microsoft’s latest 10-K filing describes just how much money is spilling out the top-story windows of Microsoft HQ. Gaming revenue for the company grew nine percent on the previous year, adding another $2 billion, “driven by growth in Xbox content and services, offset by a decline in Xbox hardware.” Even with falling console sales (down 25 percent), Microsoft saw colossal increases in income from its gaming, in the same year it chose to cancel multiple gaming projects, close down multiple studios, and lay off thousands of employees.
The document didn’t feel a need to mention all these closures in its celebration of an operating income of $34.3 billion, and instead stated, “We continue to invest in gaming studios and content to expand our intellectual property roadmap and leverage new content creators. These unique gaming experiences are the cornerstone of Xbox Game Pass, a subscription service and gaming community with access to a curated library of first- and third-party titles.”
You’ll be relieved to learn that “the gamer remains at the heart of the Xbox ecosystem,” according to the corporation. “We are identifying new opportunities to attract gamers across a variety of different end points through our first- and third-party content and business diversification across subscriptions, ads, and digital stores.”
Speaking on an accompanying earnings call, as reported by Game Developer, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Xbox Game Pass’s annual revenue totaled just under $5 billion, with 500 million active users, and “nearly” 40 games in development. He added, “We surpassed over 500 million hours of gameplay streamed via the cloud this year.”
One of those nearly 40 games isn’t Perfect Dark, the franchise reboot being developed by The Initiative. That game was just cancelled and the entire studio closed. And if there’s one thing Microsoft isn’t known for right now, it’s pumping out vital games.
Despite this, as Nadella said on the earnings call, “We are now the top publisher on both Xbox and PlayStation this quarter, with the successful launches of Forza Horizon 5 and Oblivion Remastered.” Their success in this area may be helped by the fact that Sony isn’t exactly cracking out the classics just now, with Microsoft taking advantage of the lull to see its years-old games finding new life on the rival console. It’s a new-found phenomenon as we walk through the rubble of the console wars.
To be entirely clear, this whole situation is grotesque, as the second-biggest company in the world reports profits of tens of billions of dollars, while firing thousands of people it can well afford to employ. Utterly vile.
.
