Microsoft Earnings Call - FY23Q3 | 4% decline for MS Gaming, Xbox HW down 30%

Dabaus

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How much was hard ware down last quarter ? Or the one before that? It’s not just down 30 percent it’s been down consecutive quarters no?
 
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Bryank75

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The game costs $0. It’s on Gamepass. This is like Sony charging an extra $60 and saying they’ll throw in another HDMI cord.

Owning the game and renting the game are very different things....

Owning something has a lot more value than renting it. In fact I would say renting something has no residual value especially when talking about something like a car or even a bicycle.

So are you saying that bundling a well received game actually makes the Series X undesirable and almost un-sellable? That is a damning statement on where Xbox hardware is if so...
 

Bryank75

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How much was hard ware down last quarter ? Or the one before that? It’s not just down 30 percent it’s been down consecutive quarters no?
Q1 was 'up 13 %'

Q2 was 'down 13 %'

and now we have that.... 'down 30 %'

However if Q1 was up, you have to consider they could have been stuffing channels, as they refer to channels being overloaded in their financial report under devices. This isn't proven to be the case in Xbox but my speculation.
 
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ghostz

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Owning the game and renting the game are very different things....

Owning something has a lot more value than renting it. In fact I would say renting something has no residual value especially when talking about something like a car or even a bicycle.

So are you saying that bundling a well received game actually makes the Series X undesirable and almost un-sellable? That is a damning statement on where Xbox hardware is if so...
No. It doesn’t. FH5 has no trade in value, why would I care about owning it? Or any other video game… for that matter?

The Diablo bundle will quickly sell out because it’s a new game that isn’t already on GP.

It’s like Netflix raising their price and sending you a dvd copy of a show that’s already on the subscription. People wouldn’t do it. They’d wait for the standard priced Netflix to be available.
 

Dabaus

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Q1 was 'up 13 %'

Q2 was 'down 13 %'

and now we have that.... 'down 30 %'

However if Q1 was up, you have to consider they could have been stuffing channels, as they refer to channels being overloaded in their financial report under devices. This isn't proven to be the case in Xbox but my speculation.
So two quarters ago up 13
Last quarter down 13 (that’s suspicious it’s the same amount)

And now down 30. So they probably overstuffed channels 2 quarters ago and now the bottom is falling out imo.
 

Bryank75

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No. It doesn’t. FH5 has no trade in value, why would I care about owning it? Or any other video game… for that matter?

The Diablo bundle will quickly sell out because it’s a new game that isn’t already on GP.

It’s like Netflix raising their price and sending you a dvd copy of a show that’s already on the subscription. People wouldn’t do it. They’d wait for the standard priced Netflix to be available.

Netflix is dogshit... so I don't really get you.... So is Disney+ and pretty much every streaming service.
 

ghostz

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Netflix is dogshit... so I don't really get you.... So is Disney+ and pretty much every streaming service.
It’s just an example.

It’s like Spotify or Apple Music mailing you a CD of a song… that’s already on their streaming service, and raising the price of the cost to get the service.

Happy?
 
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Bryank75

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It’s just an example.

It’s like Spotify or Apple Music mailing you a CD of a song… that’s already on their streaming service, and raising the price of the cost to get the service.

Happy?

I just buy what I like, so I can listen to it over and over, same with movies. There are so few good movies nowadays, that it's cheaper just to buy a copy of the movies and add them to the collection. I ignore all the trash....in film and music and most of it is trash....

I understand where you're coming from but I just consume things differently.
 

anonpuffs

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So two quarters ago up 13
Last quarter down 13 (that’s suspicious it’s the same amount)

And now down 30. So they probably overstuffed channels 2 quarters ago and now the bottom is falling out imo.
the percentages are yoy so you can't really tell much without looking at a larger timescale, q1 was july/august/september 2022 so all it says is that they shipped 13% more units vs the same period in 2021. 2021 was the height of pandemic chip shortage so I don't think this was channel stuffing as much as "they planned to ship this amount originally and this is chip supply catching up" - the real worrying bit is that q2 was down, that's holiday season...and they shipped less units than at the height of the chip shortages, meaning demand had already fallen through the floor at that point.
 

ARCANE

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surely they do have to be worried internally about the severe drop in hardware sales they can't keep trying to put a positive pr spin on it or ignore it. PC growth will eventually stop too so they can't rely on that forever. Shareholders will surely lose faith in the amount spent and so little gained they'll surely want someone's head on the chopping block.
 
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And what are the sub services anyway? Game Pass + Gold + ESO Online + Fallout 76 or is it GP only? We can never tell.

What is frustrating is that they keep comparing these numbers to PS+ ONLY or total revenue on PS ONLY vs Xbox on EVERYTHING (including PS)

Good point. You know MS love playing fast and loose with numbers and love spinning it any way they can.
 
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Cool hand luke

Cool hand luke

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And what are the sub services anyway? Game Pass + Gold + ESO Online + Fallout 76 or is it GP only? We can never tell.

What is frustrating is that they keep comparing these numbers to PS+ ONLY or total revenue on PS ONLY vs Xbox on EVERYTHING (including PS).

Keep in mind they are also adding the revenue Sony paid to Bethesda for all their games on PS+. Ghostwire, Doom, Fallout. It adds up to their Xbox revenue.
Bungie dlc on other platforms may also go into Sony's revenue. Nothing wrong with that per se, but Microsoft crowing about their amazing 1st party when none of these success stories were developed with them at the helm is laughable.

As is what you pointed out - how are they breaking down the $1 bil in subscription revenue? What does it include? If gamepass subs were up they'd crow about that, too. Have they declined?

Edit: They've attributed growth in content and services to GP growth. Not subscriber growth, so could be a conversion of subsidised subscriptions into full price ones, but could also be subscriber growth. As always with Microsoft, the obfuscation casts doubt on any positive interpretation of the numbers.
 
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Ludwig

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If GamePass grew by 3%, then that means it grew from 25,000,000 to 25,750,000. They never share offical numbers so this is likely wrong.
 
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