Xbox Game Pass Records Growth After Indiana Jones, Call of Duty, but Hardware Sales Drop

During today’s Q2 investors call, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella revealed that Indiana Jones and The Great Circle has reached 4 million players.

In an otherwise ho-hum earnings report for its gaming division, a bright spot appears to be MachineGames’ newest release which has garnered critical acclaim, multiple awards, and now millions of players. While sales numbers are hard to pin down given its availability on Xbox Game Pass, 4 million is still an impressive number of players considering not many people knew exactly what to expect in a modern, AAA Indiana Jones game.

We loved it ourselves, calling it an “irrestistable and immersive global treasure hunt,” along with nominations for Game of the Year and Best Xbox game. You can read our full review here.

Elsewhere in Xbox land, Microsoft confirmed that Game Pass PC grew 30% last quarter and set a new quarterly revenue record. On the cloud gaming side, 140 million hours of streaming has been logged. All this helped Xbox content and service revenue grow 2%.

There’s still work to be done however. While the Game Pass figures were stronger than expected, overall gaming revenue declined 7% and Xbox hardware revenue declined 29%.

What does this all mean? Well, Microsoft still has ground to make up in the console and hardware space, but its continued investment into Game Pass appears to be paying off. Game Pass growth on PC makes sense given Xbox had a slate of big game releases last quarter that includes Indiana Jones but also Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Microsoft Flight Simulator. All of which were available on Game Pass day one for Ultimate subscribers.

Matt Kim is IGN’s Senior Features Editor.