Starfield Gives Xbox Major Financial Boost, But Hardware Revenue Still Down

Starfield was released on Xbox Series X/S, PC and Windows last month. It became the largest Bethesda launch to date, earning the number one spot in best-selling video games for the U.S. Microsoft’s Fiscal year 2024 quarter 1 financial report has revealed that over 11 million people have played Starfield. Starfield’s successful launch led to a 13% rise in Xbox services and content. The Xbox service side was a financial success, but the overall Xbox hardware still fell 7%. 

That’s according to Microsoft executive vice president and chief financial officer Amy Hood, who also revealed during the financial results call yesterday that Xbox Game Pass experienced “better-than-expected” subscriber growth; Microsoft did not share any updated Game Pass subscription numbers, though. This 7% drop in Xbox Hardware contributed to a 22% overall decline in Microsoft Hardware for the quarter. 

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella announced during the conference that more than half of Starfield users have played on PC. And on launch day, Starfield helped set a record for the most Game Pass subscriptions added on a single day – Starfield is available on both Xbox and PC Game Pass. 

Microsoft has not revealed much about its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which took place earlier in the month. Nadella stated, “With Activision King, we now add substantial depth to our portfolio,” adding that the company has now “13 billion-dollar-plus franchises” from Candy Crush and Diablo, to Warcraft and Elder Scrolls. Gears of War is also included. He continues, “We look forward to having one of the strongest holiday first-party lineups in history including new titles such as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III” and Forza Motorsport. 

Read on to learn more Game Informer Starfield review and then read why we think Starfield is surprisingly great to play using Remote Play. Then, read this article about how Starfield feels more like an open-world adventure than a scifi themepark. 

Starfield: Have you tried it? Comment below to let us know your thoughts!