Windows and Devices by the Numbers
On June 30th, Microsoft closed the books on their FY20 fiscal year which brought the closure of Mixer, a re-org, and many other changes to the corporation. At the company’s Inspire conference today, Microsoft shined a little bit of light into the sales of Windows 10 devices last year.
The company announced earlier this year that they had 1 billion Windows 10 monthly active devices and at Inspire, they stated that in FY20 175 million Windows devices shipped and of that figure, about 26 million were gaming PCs.
Further, the company says that 47% of the devices were “Modern PCs” which I believe means they were 2:1 devices.
From time to time, Microsoft provides these insights but for me, the big takeaway was the breakout of the gaming PCs shipped. When you look at the news earlier this week that Sea of Thieves passed 1 million sales on Steam, the picture becomes clear why Microsoft is bringing Xbox games to both its console and desktop hardware.
While the PS4 has crossed the 100 million threshold last year, if Microsoft includes gaming PCs into its mix of targets for its exclusive content, then it becomes quite clear that the company has a large audience for potential sales that dwarfs Sony’s offering.
This explains why Microsoft is bringing the PC and Xbox closer together. It’s an obvious statement in hindsight but with Xbox+PC being a single demographic for the company, this makes it easier to pitch the idea of spending hundreds of millions (or billions) on game studios.
Tagged with Devices, Microsoft, Windows 10