Microsoft’s second-quarter financial results for fiscal year 2022 are in and, as expected, its holiday season delivered a boon in its game-related revenue.
For the three-month period ending December 31, 2021, Microsoft pulled in $51.7 billion in revenue overall (a 20 percent increase over the same quarter last year), and had a net income of $18.8 billion.
First-party titles and Game Pass growth were the big drivers for Xbox Content and Services revenue, while third-party games lagged behind, likely driven by the many pandemic-driven delays of 2020 and 2021.
There’s a lot of Microsoft to go around, and though game-related revenue only makes up a small part of that pool, it managed to float upward in that quarter as well. Xbox Content and Services revenue increased 10 percent year over year, while Xbox hardware sales of the series X|S increased 4 percent.
From what number to what number you might ask? We’re not sure; Microsoft doesn’t share that information. We do know that game revenue overall increased 8 percent, by a total of $411 million.
Game revenue falls under the category of “More Personal Computing” in Microsoft’s reports, and the overall segment pulled in $17 billion in revenue, a 15 percent increase over last year’s numbers. Profits for the segment clocked in at $6 billion, up 21 percent from last year.
Microsoft noted that this year’s increases need to be compared to last year’s launch of the Xbox Series X|S, whose numbers were boosted by demand for new consoles and COVID-19-driven stay-at-home rules.
This section of the financial report will likely be much more interesting in the coming years pending the approval of Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.