Microsoft has released their Q1 Fiscal Year 2018 earnings, and the first thing we looked at was their gaming department. Revenue has grown 1% overall, while Xbox software and services grew 21%. The Xbox Live monthly active users figure also grew 13%, reaching 53 million.
The earnings call, which took place right afterward, included Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella pointing out that the Xbox Game Pass program is off to a very good start. He stated that their goal for the Game Pass program is to be the Netflix for gaming on Xbox. He also noted that he feels good on the engagement increases for the streaming service called Mixer.
“I would say from a Gaming perspective, one of the bigger changes that has happened in the last, I would say, couple of years is one, of course the vibrancy of the Xbox Live network across the PC and the console and now increasingly even on the phone because of titles like Minecraft. And once you have the network, you have plenty of different opportunities. In particular, we now have a subscription offer with Game Pass that’s off to a good, very good start and our goal is to be able to have essentially a Netflix for games, so that we can have the game subscriptions that people can use across all of the devices that they play in.
The other area is streaming. As you know, there is game playing and game watching and there is secular growth on both fronts. And we feel very, very good about the engagement increases in a pretty unique value proposition we have in Mixer. So that’s another opportunity that we believe will shape in addition to things like e-sports and so on.”
Have you used either Xbox Game Pass or Mixer? While Mixer could find its niche in the Xbox community, it’s still got big competition with Twitch and the like, but Xbox Game Pass has potential to be something big, if their description of “Netflix for games” is accurate and not just PR.
