Microsoft has just shared its second quarter results for the 2024 fiscal year, and as expected it’s largely positive news for Xbox. In its first earnings report since the deal closed back in October, the tech giant revealed that gaming revenue increased 49 percent thanks in part to its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
In the earnings call slides, Microsoft revealed that the gaming endeavors were up under its personal computing highlights. Gaming revenue grew 49%, with “44 points of net impact” coming from its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
Elsewhere, Xbox content and services — which includes Game Pass — grew 61%, with 55 of those points of net impact coming from the Activision Blizzard acquisition. Xbox hardware revenue grew by 3% following a series of discounts and promotions over the holidays.
The disproportionate impact of the Activision Blizzard deal, one of the largest in games industry history, can be seen in Xbox’s report. Activision Blizzard brings with it Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and a host of other massive games, giving Xbox a big boost in almost every category. Xbox estimates that the overall impact of the acquisition is worth about $2 billion, allowing gaming to surpass Windows as Microsoft’s third-largest business.
Taken together, Microsoft made $62 billion in revenue, an increase of 18 percent driven in large part by its Office and cloud business.
Still, the news comes at a fraught time for Xbox and the industry at large. Last week, Microsoft announced layoffs affecting its Xbox division, laying off 1,900 people. As a result of the layoffs, Activision Blizzard’s survival game dubbed Odyssey was canceled, with those working on the game laid off. Workers in Activision Blizzard’s community, marketing, esports, and QA divisions were also disproportionately affected by the layoffs. Meanwhile, Microsoft became the second company to pass the $3 trillion market valuation.
Xbox will now look to 2024 amid rumors it may port some of its first-party games to other platform, with planned releasing MachineGames’ Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Hellblade 2.
Taylor is a Reporter at IGN. You can follow her on Twitter @TayNixster.
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