Microsoft gaming revenue up 44% despite quiet Q1 2019

It was a quiet first quarter for Microsoft's gaming division, but that didn't stop it from posting a 44% year-over-year increase in gaming revenue anyway.
The company's Q1 2019 earnings report shows that this increase was driven largely by third-party titles in a quarter that didn't see any first-party releases. Xbox software and and services revenue was up 36% year-over-year on its own, and Xbox Live is now up to 57 million MAU.
Hardware saw an even more dramatic year-over-year increase of 94%, which Microsoft attributes to early sales of holiday hardware bundles.
This increase contributed to $10.75 billion in revenue from the company's "More Personal Computing" segment, which also includes Windows OEM, commercial products, and cloud services. The segment overall saw 15% year-over-year growth.
Microsoft's overall Q1 2019 was $29.1 billion, up 19% year-over-year.
Next quarter looks to be slightly noisier on the gaming side of things with the release of Forza Horizon 4 factored in, as well as the Xbox Adaptive Controller and Microsoft's console subscription service, Xbox All Access.
Update (25/10/2018): Speaking during an investor call, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella confirmed that Xbox Game Pass will be fully expanded to PC.
Currently PC gamers only receive access to the latest first-party titles through Game Pass, but now Microsoft intends to expand the offering to include older titles and third-party releases, reflecting the offering on Xbox.
"Xbox has the key gaming community and the monetisation capabilities," said Nadella. "Whether it's first-party games or third-party games, we are best-in-class in that monetisation and that's what's reflected in the results.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articl...-quiet-q1-2019