Highlights
- Starfield's release helped Xbox Game Pass achieve a record number of new subscribers in a single day, highlighting the success of both the game and the subscription service.
- The game reached 10 million players within two weeks of its release, making it the fastest Bethesda game to achieve this milestone.
- Microsoft's financial report revealed that Starfield contributed to the growth of Xbox Game Pass, with over 11 million lifetime players and nearly half of the game's total playing hours on PC. The game's success also had a positive impact on Xbox content and services revenue.
Starfield helped Xbox Game Pass set a record for most new subscribers in a single day, Microsoft has revealed. This bit of insight into the popular subscription service is yet another piece of evidence testifying to Starfield's historic success.
Originally launched in early September, Bethesda's latest title was treated to a five-day early access period available to anyone who purchased one of its higher-tier versions, as well as Xbox Game Pass subscribers who paid for the Digital Premium Edition upgrade. Two weeks into its release, Starfield hit 10 million players, thus becoming the fastest Bethesda game to do so.
Starfield Player Points Out Interesting Consequence to Destroying Ships
An eagle-eyed Starfield player realizes that there's an interesting consequence to destroying ships in Bethesda's galaxy-spanning RPG.
As part of Microsoft's consolidated financial report for the first quarter of its fiscal year 2024, the company revealed that Starfield also allowed Xbox Game Pass to set a new record for the most subscribers added in a single day. Microsoft CFO Amy Hood confirmed this milestone during an October 24 earnings call, clarifying that the record was set on September 6, the day of Starfield's full-fledged global release. Hood also mentioned that the game's reach continued to grow throughout October, revealing that Starfield now boasts over 11 million lifetime players.
Microsoft did not provide a detailed breakdown of the RPG's performance by platform, which is consistent with the company's reporting practices. Nevertheless, Hood did remark how almost half of the game's total playing hours have been clocked on PC. Not only did Starfield manage to boost Xbox Game Pass subscriptions in an unprecedented manner, but it did so while still performing admirably in terms of conventional sales. That's according to an independent market report from late October, which suggested Xbox Game Pass did not stop Starfield from selling amazingly, at least in the United States.
Looking at the bigger picture, Microsoft's gaming business had a fairly successfully quarter, enjoying a 9% revenue uptick in spite of a 7% decline in hardware turnover, which mostly consists of console sales. Xbox content and services revenue grew 13 points, largely driven by first-party game sales and Xbox Game Pass memberships.
Speaking of which, Hood labeled the quarterly growth of Microsoft's subscription service as "better than expected," suggesting that the platform finally returned to what the conglomerate deems is adequate performance. As a reminder, Xbox Game Pass missed its last two subscriber goals. A less optimistic interpretation of Hood's insight is that Microsoft simply lowered its internal targets until the service managed to hit them. Seeing how this is the first year in the last three that CEO Satya Nadella's compensation isn't tied to Xbox Game Pass growth, that theory is not without evidence, however circumstantial.
Starfield is available now on PC and Xbox Series X/S.
Source: Microsoft (DOCX)