With Activision Blizzard now well established in the family, Microsoft's video game activity reached a turnover of 5 billion euros for the first quarter of 2024, including 1.8 billion euros coming from Activision Blizzard. This is naturally a record for Xbox but it is also higher than expectations since turnover is up 51% while the objective was to be in the 40%. Notable detail, Activision Blizzard is responsible for an increase of 55%, which implies that Xbox turnover would have fallen by 4% without this significant reinforcement. In the meantime, Xbox is well on its way to joining PlayStation and Tencent in the closed circle of companies whose video game turnover exceeds 20 billion euros annually.
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Activision Blizzard saves furniture, not consoles
It is also almost entirely thanks to Activision Blizzard that revenue from games and services is up 62% from one year to the next. Without that, we would have had to settle for 1% growth. In contrast, sales of Xbox consoles are still doing poorly with hardware turnover down 31% compared to the first quarter of 2023, which represents around 326 million euros. Note that Microsoft anticipates a further decline in console sales for the April-June 2024 quarter, giving even more meaning to the recent ports of PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch games.
“ We're committed to meeting gamers where they are by bringing quality games to more people on more devices. We've expanded our games to new platforms, bringing four of our fan-favorite games to Nintendo Switch and Sony PlayStation for the first time. In fact, at the start of the month, we had 7 games in the top 25 on PlayStation Store, more than any other publisher », even underlined CEO Satya Nadella during his presentation.
As always, Microsoft does not reveal the operating income of its video game activity. He noted on the other hand that the acquisition of Activision Blizzard has caused an operational loss of 736 million euros since the start of its integration last October, which means that the various costs incurred and operating expenses are for the moment more higher than what Activision Blizzard reports. Note also the absence of specific comment on Xbox Game Pass, other than that Diablo 4 was played “more than 10 million hours” by subscribers over the first 10 days of its availability. Good.
For slots enthusiasts, let us finally note that Microsoft as a whole achieved a turnover of 61.9 billion dollars (up 17%), an operating profit of 27.6 billion dollars (up 23%). and net profit of $21.9 billion (up 20%). In three months, yes.
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