They also point out Game Pass as a growth driver once again so I imagine Avowed, NG2, Atomfall, etc. All contributed to that. Though maybe not Atomfall by much as it released March 27th which would be right at the end of the quarter, Lol.

8% vs "Low-Mid Digits" is a decent beat.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to their projections for next quarter, Lol.

the real story of Microsoft's Q3 earnings is the solid cloud growth once again. Revenue in intelligent cloud, which includes Azure, is up to $26.8 billion. That's exactly double what all of Windows OEM, Surface, and Xbox generated this Q www.theverge.com/news/658793/...

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— Tom Warren (@tomwarren.co.uk) 30 April 2025 at 21:21

This made me laugh though.

Xbox was the top publisher on Xbox and PlayStation in preorders and preinstalls

PC Game Pass revenue increased 45% YOY

Cloud Gaming record of 150M hours played in a quarter (was 140M last quarter)

— John Welfare (@johnbp.bsky.social) 30 April 2025 at 22:48

My light armor leveling is bugged in Oblivion Remaster, noticed it hasn't increased at all, and looked at the progress bar in the skills screen and it indeed hasn't gone up at all in spite of taking a good deal of damage from enemies.

Edit: Looked into it, and apparently the No Item Degradation mod I had downloaded was the culprit, removed that mod now.

Little bit on Hardware from Welfare.

If you're wondering about how Xbox did this past quarter, it beat Microsoft's expectations

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— John Welfare (@johnbp.bsky.social) 30 April 2025 at 22:11

Amy Hood

• Gaming results were better than expected.
• Stronger than expected in both 1st and 3rd party content.
• Strong execution in better margin opportunities.

Period = Q3 (January - March).

-Accidental Double Post-

Little bit more info.

• Xbox ended the quarter as the top publisher on both Xbox and PlayStation for pre-orders and pre-installs
• PC Game Pass saw growth of 45% year-over-year
• There was a 75% increase in active users for Minecraft year-over-year after its movie released
• Xbox Cloud Streaming use saw a record 150 million hours for the quarter
• Xbox games and services saw 500 million users across all platforms

Amy Hood stated that for the second quarter in a row that the gaming division outperformed their expectations. Xbox has seen a marked shift from an Xbox console-first approach to an “Xbox Everywhere” one.

XboxEra

75% increase in active users for Minecraft after the film release is kind of hilarious considering how many active users it already has. 

Xbox guidance for next quarter (April to June 2025)

Total: growth mid single digits (4-6%)
Content & Services: high single digits (7-9%) driven by 1st party
Hardware: nothing

This quarter has Oblivion, PS5 Indiana Jones and Forza, and the Minecraft movie impact

— John Welfare (@johnbp.bsky.social) 30 April 2025 at 23:04