“At first it was like, ‘What are you doing?’ ‘You’re the Xbox business and you’re not giving us console [sales numbers], that makes no sense.'”
Microsoft stopped releasing Xbox sales figures in 2015, and the company has now explained why. According to Xbox CFO Tim Stuart, who spoke this week at the Wells Fargo 2023 TMT Summit, Microsoft does not publicly disclose these figures because, in Microsoft’s opinion, a unit-sales number alone does not provide the clearest picture of how the Xbox brand is performing overall.
For what it’s worth, both Sony and Nintendo release quarterly hardware sales figures. Xbox is thought to be in last place in terms of console sales when compared to PlayStation and Switch, which could explain Microsoft’s lack of console sales disclosure.
“At first, it was like, ‘What are you doing?'” Stuart said at the summit. ‘You’re in the Xbox business, and not giving us console [sales figures] makes no sense.’ But it was the first time we said, “No, no, it’s about content and services.”
Stuart stated that he measures Xbox’s success by the number of customers it has and the amount of money it makes as a brand, and Xbox is no longer just a console brand these days. Previously, Phil Spencer stated that console sales are “not really a reflection of how healthy your ecosystem is.”
Stuart stated that his job is to help Xbox reach more people and increase Xbox user spending. Microsoft is doing this by providing players with a variety of purchasing options, such as purchasing games outright, subscribing to Game Pass, or watching ads for mobile titles.
According to the executive, regions such as Africa, India, and Southeast Asia are not “console-first” markets, so Microsoft is attempting to push streaming and mobile games there. After all, the mobile game industry is the largest and most commercially successful segment of the gaming industry as a whole.
Stuart estimated that the console market is worth “a couple hundred million,” while the PC market is worth around 400 million. He claims that the potential audience for mobile is in the billions.
This is one of the reasons Microsoft wanted to buy Activision Blizzard: it wanted to acquire the company’s mobile game franchises, such as Candy Crush, Call of Duty Mobile, Diablo Immortal, and Warcraft Rumble. Stuart emphasized that the mobile market is difficult to break into, and that now that it owns Activision Blizzard, it is immediately a market leader.
Looking further ahead, Stuart hinted that Microsoft intends to use Activision Blizzard’s mobile experience to create mobile experiences based on Microsoft’s own IP. He did not, however, announce Halo Mobile or anything else; it is still early days for Microsoft mobile games.
Stuart also revealed during the speaking event that Microsoft intends to bring Game Pass to PlayStation and Nintendo devices. He also explained why he believes AI will be beneficial to gaming.