Video Games

Starfield launch set record for new Xbox Game Pass subscriptions in a single day

Microsoft has released its FY 2024 Q1 financial report

Marco Wutz

Starfield launch set record for new Xbox Game Pass subscriptions in a single day
Starfield launch set record for new Xbox Game Pass subscriptions in a single day /

Microsoft’s financial report for the first quarter of FY 2024 is out, revealing that the company made $3.919 billion USD in revenue from its gaming ventures. That’s a plus of 9% from the same period last year, making it a new record for Q1. This is all the more impressive when contrasted with the fact that in the same time frame hardware sales have gone down by 7%.

While less Xbox consoles were shipped, revenue from Xbox content and services went up by 13% compared to last year’s first quarter. During the corresponding earnings call, Microsoft’s CEO Satya Nadella stated this past quarter had set a record for hours played per Game Pass subscriber – which seems like a clear effect of the launch of Starfield on the service.

Starfield screenshot of New Atlantis.
It looks like putting Starfield on Game Pass was a successful move for Microsoft :: Microsoft / Bethesda

Indeed, Starfield’s release day set a new record for most new Game Pass subscriptions in a single day. While Nadella did not share sales numbers for Starfield, he said that over eleven million users had played the game with nearly 50% of hours having been played on PC.

Game Pass growth was better than Microsoft expected over this period, CFO Amy Hood said. Once again, the company did not share any numbers in this regard. Hood stated that Microsoft expects its gaming revenue to rise by almost 50% thanks to the closed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which will flood the company’s coffers with money from titles like Call of Duty and Candy Crush starting with the ongoing quarter.

Microsoft will announce further plans for its gaming division during today’s Xbox Partner Preview showcase, which will focus on third-party games coming to PC and Xbox Series X|S in the next few months. Plans regarding Activision Blizzard games will be communicated at some other point as Xbox chief Phil Spencer has already reiterated that Xbox Game Pass integration will take a while for the newly acquired titles.

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Marco Wutz
MARCO WUTZ

Marco Wutz is a writer from Parkstetten, Germany. He has a degree in Ancient History and a particular love for real-time and turn-based strategy games like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Total War, Age of Wonders, Crusader Kings, and Civilization as well as a soft spot for Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail. He began covering StarCraft 2 as a writer in 2011 for the largest German community around the game and hosted a live tournament on a stage at gamescom 2014 before he went on to work for Bonjwa, one of the country's biggest Twitch channels. He branched out to write in English in 2015 by joining tl.net, the global center of the StarCraft scene run by Team Liquid, which was nominated as the Best Coverage Website of the Year at the Esports Industry Awards in 2017. He worked as a translator on The Crusader Stands Watch, a biography in memory of Dennis "INTERNETHULK" Hawelka, and provided live coverage of many StarCraft 2 events on the social channels of tl.net as well as DreamHack, the world's largest gaming festival. From there, he transitioned into writing about the games industry in general after his graduation, joining GLHF, a content agency specializing in video games coverage for media partners across the globe, in 2021. He has also written for NGL.ONE, kicker, ComputerBild, USA Today's ForTheWin, The Sun, Men's Journal, and Parade. Email: marco.wutz@glhf.gg

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