Microsoft's Xbox Business Sees Strong Growth after Activision Blizzard Acquisition

TapTechNews July 31st news, Microsoft's earnings report released today shows that after the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the Xbox business has once again seen strong growth. In the quarter ending June 30th, Microsoft's gaming business revenue increased by 44% year-on-year, of which Activision contributed a 48-percentage-point increase. Without this acquisition, gaming revenue would have declined by 4%.

Although Xbox hardware revenue decreased by 42% year-on-year, Xbox content and services revenue (including Xbox Game Pass) increased by 61%, and most of it (58 percentage points) also came from Activision Blizzard.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that the monthly active users of the Xbox platform and devices have exceeded 500 million. He emphasized that the company's game content library is unprecedentedly powerful, and this quarter showed a record 30 new games, of which 18, including Call of Duty: Black Ops 6, will be available on Game Pass. In addition, Game Pass Ultimate subscribers can now directly stream games on more devices, including Amazon Fire TV. It is worth noting that the Fallout series was first adapted into a TV series and aired on Amazon Prime Video, becoming the second most popular series on the platform, and the playtime of the Fallout game on Game Pass has increased by nearly five times.

TapTechNews noticed that Microsoft announced an increase in the price of Xbox Game Pass earlier this month and launched a standard subscription package that does not include first-release games. In addition, Modern Warfare 3 became the first Call of Duty game to be added to Game Pass, and Black Ops 6, which will be released on October 25th, will be the first series work to be added to Game Pass at the first release.

Data from research firm Circana shows that the sales of Xbox Series consoles in the US market lag behind the same period of Xbox One by 13%. Nevertheless, Microsoft has confirmed that it is developing a new generation of Xbox hardware and said it will bring exciting new hardware products during this holiday season.