Starfield Gives Xbox Major Financial Boost, But Hardware Revenue Still Down

Starfield hit Xbox Series X/S and PC last month, and it became the biggest Bethesda game launch ever, later earning it the top spot on best-selling games in the U.S. last month. Now, thanks to Microsoft's Fiscal Year 2024 Quarter 1 financial results, we know more than 11 million players have played Starfield to date. Starfield's excellent launch resulted in a 13% increase in overall Xbox content and services. However, despite the financial boon on the Xbox services side, overall Xbox hardware was still down 7%. 

That's according to Microsoft executive vice president and chief financial officer Amy Hood, who also revealed during the financial results call yesterday that Xbox Game Pass experienced "better-than-expected" subscriber growth; Microsoft did not share any updated Game Pass subscription numbers, though. That 7% decrease in Xbox hardware contributed to an overall decrease of 22% in Microsoft hardware for this quarter. 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed during the call that nearly half of all Starfield players have played the game on PC. And on launch day, Starfield helped set a record for the most Game Pass subscriptions added on a single day – Starfield is available on both Xbox and PC Game Pass. 

While Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard happened earlier this month, Microsoft had little to share about the purchase. Nadella said, "With Activision Blizzard King, we will now add significant depth to our content portfolio," and that the company now has "13 billion dollar-plus franchises from Candy Crush, Diablo and Halo, to Warcraft, Elder Scrolls, and Gears of War." He adds, "We are looking forward to one of our strongest first party holiday lineups ever including new titles like Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III and Forza Motorsport." 

For more, read Game Informer's Starfield review and then read why we think Starfield is surprisingly great to play using Remote Play. After that, check out this feature about how Starfield is more like a sci-fi theme park than an open world adventure. 

Have you played Starfield? Let us know what you think of it in the comments below!

source https://www.gameinformer.com/news/2023/10/25/starfield-gives-xbox-major-financial-boost-but-hardware-revenue-still-down