New Earnings Reveals Xbox Is The Biggest Publisher This Quarter Despite Hardware’s Continued Dip

The argument Microsoft has been trying to makes has left an impression that Xbox is out the door for many users. While the firm shares its commitment to players on its platform, the ideology to release its own titles across more systems not Xbox only has users concerned. The latest examples of this are Forza Horizon 5 & Indiana Jones and the Great Circle just this month.

Additionally, the Xbox company is doubling-down on the effort. At GDC, the opening press release from Microsoft for the conference was its promise to deliver on “gaming anywhere”. Although there was statements in the past on the matter, it fully embraces that this year. One byproduct of that is the milestone for 1K+ Xbox Play Anywhere-supported titles as of this March.

This week, Microsoft releases its Fy25 Q3 earnings report sharing that Xbox is in a good spot for its return this quarter. Alike prior financial cycles, the hardware is on a decline as Microsoft is further investing beyond core Xbox silicon. However, that contrasts the continued incline for content & services. You can view the slide in the image below:

“We continue to transform the business and focus on margin expansion, as we bring our games to over 500 million monthly active users across devices. We ended the quarter as the top publisher by pre-orders and pre-installs on both Xbox and the PlayStation Store. PC Game Pass revenue increased over 45% year-over-year,” CEO Satya Nadella says. “Cloud gaming set a new record, surpassing 150 million hours played for the first time this quarter.”

It appears things are beginning to full circle for Microsoft after the initial & understandable pushback from its new business strategy for Xbox. At the time, Nadella expressed Microsoft as a publisher for the future and has proven to perform well as one across its as well as competitor platforms. You can read the full report by heading here.

Are you surprised by this recent turnout for Microsoft?

Source: Microsoft, (1)