Today, as news comes out that Xbox has increased hardware and accessories prices worldwide, we also learn that the company has achieved success in its software and subscription business.Xbox held a earnings call on Wednesday to announce its financial results for January to March this year.During this period, Xbox became the number one publisher of the PlayStation store, a testament to the controversial move of its own exclusive games to rival platforms is working.However, during the same period, Xbox hardware sales fell by 6% year-on-year.
The decline in hardware sales is accompanied by the fact that Xbox has become the world's largest video game publisher.As exclusive games that can attract players to buy Xbox consoles have decreased, it is no surprise that their sales have declined.The company's "This is an Xbox" campaign shows that the historic console maker is abandoning the idea that its first-party games are launched on a single console platform.Xbox prefers to meet players on the platform, and this strategy seems to be working, as revenues for PC Xbox Game Pass (PC Game Pass) increased by 45% year-on-year, and cloud gaming has played for 150 million hours during this period, a record.
We are in a special period in the video game industry.It is not common for a host to increase its price several years after its release.But this is not a problem unique to Xbox, with PlayStation raising the subscription price for PlayStation Plus recently, and many people expect the Nintendo Switch 2 to rise as well after the current 90-day tariff suspension period ended.
Xbox may be the number one publisher on two competitor console platforms now, but it remains to be seen whether it can maintain that position.Xbox Game Studio has launched some great games over the past few months, with more coming later this year, while PlayStation Game Studio has been slower to release games this year.It's easy to guess that, like "Raiders of the Lost Ark: Ancient Circle" released on the PlayStation platform on April 17, and "Doom: Dark Ages" scheduled to be released on May 15, it's likely to lead in sales and pre-orders, but there aren't many games that compete with it at the moment.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year, PlayStation plans to launch Death Stranding 2 and Souls of Sheep Hoof Mountain in June and October, not to mention that GTA 6 may put all other games to shame.Xbox plans to launch Obsidian Entertainment's Outer Worlds 2 later this year, and while it's likely to be a great game, it may not allow Xbox to continue to top the list on competitors' platforms.Ultimately, it will take years for this strategic shift to achieve results.
