Amazon’s Fallout TV series has received an estimated 9 million likes since its premiere, and the latest accolade came from Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. During a conference call outing the company’s latest batch of financials, we learned how much the show has boosted the number of players of the Fallout game on Game Pass.
Speaking of the show, Nadella revealed (thanks, IGN), which recently received multiple Emmy nominations and was renewed for a second season faster than you can mention VATS, that “play time for the Fallout series on Game Pass increased nearly 5x over the previous quarter” following the show’s launch.
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While we already knew that Walton Goggins and Ella Purnell’s California run brought the return of Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Fallout: New Vegas and their predecessors to a large number of players, Microsoft has not previously outlined specifically what impact this will have on Game Pass.
In addition to the above numbers, Nadella also revealed more news when discussing the performance of Microsoft’s gaming division. Xbox’s game revenue and content and services revenue increased by 44% and 61% year-on-year, although it is worth noting that a large part of the growth was due to the impact of the acquisition of Activision Blizzard, which did not affect these numbers last year because it was fully acquired in October.
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In fact, as Kotaku’s Ethan Gach points out, when it comes to gaming revenue specifically, without ActiBlizzard’s 48 percent revenue contribution, the company’s revenue would actually be down 4 percent. When it comes to content and services, revenue would still be up, but only 3 percent. This is similar to last quarter, when without ActiBlizz, Xbox’s gaming revenue would also be down 4 percent, while content and services revenue would only be up 1 percent.
Meanwhile, the recent trend of declining or flat hardware sales across the board (not just limited to Xbox) continues, with this earnings report showing a 42% year-over-year decline, higher than the 31% year-over-year decline in console sales in the previous quarter.
