Microsoft has closed out the third quarter of its 2021 financial year, offering a somewhat vague look at how its next generation of video game hardware is faring the wild.
Overall, Microsoft closed out the quarter ending March 31, 2021 with $41.7 billion in revenue, up 19 percent year-over-year, and operating income of $17 billion, up 19 percent.
The company isn’t in the habit of releasing straight numbers all elements of the Xbox business itself, but the More Personal Computing branch that houses its video game dealings reported revenue of $13 billion, up 19 percent year-over-year. Operating income for that segment is up $967 million to $4.6 billion.
Microsoft’s video game business as a whole brought in roughly $3.5 billion this quarter, up roughly $1.2 billion (or 50 percent) year-over-year, which is roughly the same increase percentage-wise the gaming segment reported for Q2.
Breaking that down somewhat, Xbox Content and Services (which includes the sale of games, digital add-ons, and subscriptions like Xbox Game Pass) is up $739 million (or 34 percent) year-over-year. Microsoft credits this increase to, in this order, strength from third-party titles, Xbox Game Pass subscriptions, and first-party titles.
Meanwhile, no exact figure is given for hardware growth but we do know that revenue is up a whopping 232 percent year-over-year driven by, unsurprisingly, demand for the Xbox Series X|S. While 232 percent is quite the increase, it’s worth noting that this figure compares against Q3 2020 where console sales were already starting to drag in anticipation of the next-generation Xbox launches.
For reference, last year Microsoft reported a 1 percent increase in gaming revenue, and a 2 percent increase in Xbox content and services. Hardware revenue wasn’t mentioned.