Xbox Q1 hardware sales down 17%, but Xbox Live numbers swell

Microsoft has said that combined Xbox One and Xbox 360 shipments for its fiscal Q1 were down 17 per cent year-on-year.
The company hasn’t revealed the actual sales figure, though did say the decline was mainly due to falling sales of the older Xbox 360 platform.
In the same period last year Microsoft reported Xbox sales of 2.4m units, so a 17 per cent decline – on the presumption it refers to unit sales – would point to sales this time of around 2m for the period.
In July Sony reported 3m PS4 unit sales for its Q1. At that stage global PS4 sales stood at 25.3m. The last time Microsoft revealed an Xbox One shipment number was back in November 2014, when it stood at 10m.
However, it’s certainly true that both systems are tracking well ahead of their predecessors,especially in the US. Both Xbox One and PS4 have had UK price cuts recently, in June and this week respectively.
There was big growth with Xbox Live. The service now has 39m active monthly users, up 28 per cent year-on-year and pushing Xbox Live revenues up 17 per cent. Game revenue soared 66 per cent thanks to the acquisition of Minecraft.
Microsoft’s overall revenue fell 12 per cent from $23.2bn last year to $20.4bn. Net income was up two per cent at $4.6bn. Revenues at its ‘More Personal Computing’ division, which is home to Xbox, fell from $11.2bn to $9.3bn. Operating income fell from $1.62bn to $1.56bn.
Interestingly, the company told Game Informer that it “will not be using console shipments as its primary metric for success beginning with this quarter” and that the company “is more focused on engagement, leading it to choose Xbox Live usership as its leading statistic”.

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/xbox-...-swell/0157896