If we go into detail, we observe that during the first fiscal quarter that ended on September 30, Xbox contributed to Microsoft’s coffers a total of 3,610 million dollars, a figure that is slightly higher than last year, when the division gaming posted record quarterly revenue of $3.593 billion. Compared to the same period of the previous year, hardware revenues increased 13% to reach 800 million dollars, while services and content suffered a 3% drop. This decline has been partially offset by growth in Game Pass subscriptions.
Microsoft still does not update the number of Game Pass customers, so for now we are satisfied with knowing that last January it was 25 million. On this occasion, the company has only detailed that subscriptions to PC Game Pass have uploaded 159% Compared to the same period of the previous year. We can also add that 20 million players have tried Xbox Cloud Gaming.
As for the rest of the divisions, we highlight Intelligent Cloud, which thanks to revenues of 20.3 billion dollars remains Microsoft’s most important. In this department we find Azure and other cloud services, which see a 35% year-over-year increase in revenue. For its part, LinkedIn contributes 3,663 million dollars, a year-over-year increase of 17%, while Surface devices are up 2% despite not launching any new products during this period.
During fiscal year 2023, Microsoft hopes to complete the purchase of Activision Blizzard, a company for which it will pay (if they let it) 68.7 billion dollars.