PC Gaming Essential for Microsoft; Phil Spencer Mentions Big Amount
Microsoft will get huge revenues from PC games this year. The company also revealed how many gamers per month are playing Xbox exclusive titles.
Phil Spencer, head of Xbox, took part in the "What's Next For Gaming" panel, where he confirmed that the Redmond giant will get a billion dollars in revenue from PC game sales this year. And he is not oblivious to the fact that for Microsoft this is a very important sphere of activity.
New Xbox records
In addition, Spencer pointed out that the company's current revenues are twice what they were for the Xbox 360. The company also achieved record numbers of active users in its games - including Microsoft Flight Simulator or the Forza series. Currently, more than 150 million people a month are playing Microsoft's first-party games.
"We have more players than we've ever had, and we are always looking to find new players and creators. Even on PC, which has been a real focus for us as team. [...] We are going to do $1bn in PC revenue this year, for the first time ever for us at Microsoft," said Phil Spencer.
In turn, Matt Booty, head of Microsoft Studios, added that Xbox has released ten of its own games in the last five years, each of which now has a community of more than ten million people..
These stats were supplemented by Benji-Sales on Twitter. The sales data specialist revealed that the number of PC Game Pass users increased by 46% over the previous year. He also confirmed that one of Microsoft's goals is to provide gamers with at least four of its own titles a year.
Struggling to accept Activision's acquisition of Blizzard
To strengthen its position in the PC market, Microsoft is pushing hard to finalize its purchase of Activision Blizzard. The deal has been blocked by the UK's CMA, and the US Federal Trade Commission also has doubts about the acquisition. Approval for the merger, on the other hand, has been given by the European Commission or relevant authorities in Brazil and China, among others.
"Microsoft is very committed, we are very committed [to getting the deal done], we think there is a real capability that Activision Blizzard King has, particularly in mobile and PC, to growing our portfolio to find more players and reach more players." Spencer continued.
Xbox Game Showcase - more games revealed
Yesterday's Microsoft event delivered a number of interesting announcements. Confirmed, among other things, was the arrival of the refreshed Persona 3, as well as the release date of Phantom Liberty DLC for Cyberpunk 2077.
Shortly after the event ended, Starfield Direct launched. Here the audience was able to see a lot of new footage from the upcoming game. A special edition controller and headphones were also revealed, with themes from Bethesda's game. Unfortunately, Todd Howard confirmed that Starfield will only be playable on consoles at 30 frames per second.
