Microsoft's latest financial report was mostly uneventful for gaming, but it did yield a striking stat shared by CEO Satya Nadella: almost half of the people who've bought an Xbox Series S console were never Xbox gamers before.
"As we look towards the holidays, we offer the best value in gaming with Game Pass and Xbox Series S," Nadella claims on the company's latest finance webcast. "Nearly half of the Series S buyers are new to our ecosystem."
Interestingly, Nadella's holistic closing comment also lined up fairly well with the company's approach with the Series S: "In a world facing increasing headwinds, digital technology is the ultimate tailwind."
Nadella didn't quantify just how many Series S owners "nearly half" actually means, but the figure is still significant even if it is a bit vague.
Attracting new Xbox users was always core to the Series S. For starters, committed Nintendo or PlayStation players won't have to shell out a full $500 to play the few exclusive games they may have been eyeing from afar. The console retails for $299 and regularly goes on sale (get the best Xbox Series S deals here), and you can even get it with two years of Game Pass Ultimate for $24.99 a month.
Likewise, folks without a decent gaming PC can play the hundreds of games on Game Pass – many of them multi-platform, not to mention first-party Xbox games hitting the service day one – on the cheap. Finally, entirely new gamers can dip their toes in the hobby without too big of an investment while gaining instant access to an enormous, varied library.
The digital-only Xbox Series S was always billed as a cheap, albeit trimmed-down way into the new generation of consoles, the easiest way for anyone to access the Game Pass library (outside of the cloud or specific TVs), and the most affordable way to play a few specific Xbox games. With almost half of Series S owners apparently using the console to get into Xbox for the first time, this pitch is clearly working on a lot of people.
The Series S even outsold the PS5 in Japan for the first time in May, which is especially noteworthy given how severely the Xbox brand has struggled on Nintendo and Sony's home turf.
Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently said that he doesn't think Microsoft can avoid raising the price on consoles or Game Pass forever.
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