It's only fitting that we interview Steve Downes -- the voice of Master Chief himself -- on this special 117th episode of the world's #1 Xbox podcast. Steve talks about getting the role of a lifetime, his first video game voice work (hint: it wasn't Halo!), the end of Halo 2, if he thought he'd be replaced after Bungie left Halo, and much, much more. It's a 35-minute interview you won't want to miss.
Microsoft claimed the indie game uses "Minecraft content."
During the conference call for Q2 of FY2026, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and CFO Amy Hood talked about the future of the xbox business.
«partly offset by growth in Xbox Game Pass.»
I take it with a big grain of salt. They've been reporting nothing about GP, only words.
We still don't have any hardware numbers, no software units sold, no subscription numbers, no PC vs console GP, we don't have any profit numbers ... we literally have nothing but overall revenue and words.
Does it really matter? Are you shareholder? Gamers have to stop acting like these companies owe us something. Its obvious everything is down. Thats completely normal in all businesses. It will be up and down again.
Yes, since they don't get tired spewing out word salad 12 months a year.
"Biggest launch", "millions of players", "growth of", "here look our revenue", "We buy ABK", "We'll bring you 1st party every quarter", "Biggest this, biggest that", "We always wanted to share games with everyone", "We're growing", "biggest launch", "millions of players", ... you get the point.
They either shut up.
Or deliver numbers like Nintendo, Playstation, hell even Tencent does.
On a sidenote:
Just years ago, Microsoft wanted to buy out a whole lot more than just Zenimax and ABK. They even wanted to push Sony out and collect Nintendo in.
You bet your butt I'm demanding numbers.
In an article discussing industry matters, telling people to not worry or want better information on the industry is antithesis to the whole point of it. I'm going to try this out with all those review articles. I mean, who cares about scores, just try it out for yourself, that's the only opinion that matters.
«In an article discussing industry matters, telling people to not worry or want better information on the industry is antithesis to the whole point of it.»
Well.
That's it.
Case closed!
He might be a shareholder you can get a etorro or whatever online platform about and throw 20 bucks into Microsoft boom shareholder
Yes, it matters. This is business! Some gamers have to stop acting like it only matters when the company they prefer wants to play ball.
The fact that shareholders are also in the dark im sure is also completely fine with you and Microsoft doesn't owe them anything either amirite? Not withstanding how silly and potentially inappropriate it is for someone to defend a public company from hiding sales information, you are also completely wrong.
@varora
Thank you.
For over 10 years we've been in those quarterly discussions.
Yet Nintendo and Playstation are the only manufacturers that deliver numbers, that deliver proof, that give us numerical baselines to either brag about or compliment them.
The only fraction that's been pulling doooozens of doooozens, hundreds and thousands of word salad bribberish comments out of their Xbox'clestotitis fan cloud is the die hard Xbox community.
And by doing that they're even defending that downward spiral Xbox is suffering from.
Bring the numbers buddies, or else just stfu.
Nintendo and Playstation can deliver all the numbers they want. It doesnt matter much because hardware isn't the only way to make money in the industry. Maybe decades ago but not now. That's why you see sony putting more and more games on PC. They know its the games that keeps the money coming. Consoles stagnate but not the software.
The fact is that Microsoft was and is never gonna outsell them. The competition's console sales doesnt really affect Microsoft"s profit margin much if at all.. Look at how many more consoles sony sells and then go look at what they report in profit. The gap is nowhere near the gap in console sold. Hardware doesn't dictate market trends.
Microsoft doesn't report xbox profit, so how can we compare them.......
Console sales lead to those software sales, thats not a theory its a fact, old days, these days... doesn't matter, one company is doing much better than the other, and thats partly because of said console sales...
I really think Call of Duty underperforming, the raise in subscription prices and Hoods ridiculous expectations of 30% return. Is what led to the lower numbers.
Could you show us the profit charts while you're at it? Would love to see this 'gap' you mentioned. Should be easy to show that right?
This whole report is confusing to me until I remember content and service are separate. Content went down... okay we get that because COD 'bombed' but Services went up because of the price increase which mitigated most of the lost from the cancelations. Okay got it.
I wouldn't blame the results on Amy but she sure as hell had unreasonable expectations.
GamePass has put Xbox in a bad position where the absolutely need PlayStation to make their numbers. So if a big game like COD bombs... they got a problem.
The fact that their service revenue (GamePass) can't drive growth on its own is a huge red flag. That was supposed to be the whole point.
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Microsoft announced its financial results for Q2 of fiscal year 2026, including an update on its gaming business.
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I don't why people waste their time replying to the alt-account clown. Their comment is going to get flagged as spam as it always does and those comments (and all replies) will eventually disappear. Better to ignore them and carry on constructive debate with those not scared to post with a permanent account.
@raW: “ I don't why people waste their time replying to the alt-account clown.”
He suffer from from keyboardrhrea and can’t wait the average month of clean posting to have a permanent account.
.
@taco: “ Funny that this website actually works again when there's prime opportunity to slam on Xbox.
LOL it's all admins ever give a shit about
The funny thing is that it’s at random at least for me, sometimes is working find and other times it doesn’t let me do anything even flag the spammers.
This isn’t a us vs them it’s a everyone is in the swamp up to the neck
Funny that this website actually works again when there's prime opportunity to slam on Xbox.
LOL it's all admins ever give a shit about
Pretty surprising on revenue and content being down. Obviously hardware being down is expected, but you'd think that the GamePass price hike, CoD, and things such horizon 5 coming to PS5 would drive things up. No wonder MS is all-in on the multiplat strategy, don't really have choice at this point. There might be another GP price hike this year.
COD is likely the issue. It appears BO7 is doing significantly worse than BO6. Game Pass is apparently growing, so the problem isn't there.
@Varora: What you "hear" (from your uncle who works at Nintendo?) is irrelevant when the CFO of Microsoft says the opposite in the conference call.
Incidentally, "content and services" are down, not just services, which include Call of Duty. If you don't know how to interpret financials, don't try 😂
Edit: Oh wait... another troll account made 46 minutes ago. I really need to learn to check before engaging. 😂
I noped my way out on the last price hike. Whilst Ultimate was convenient for a while being also able to Play on PC, it became too rich for my blood.
Wonder how the goalposts will be moved this time, it shifted from exclusives and console sales, to revenue, where now then.
No goal post. It was down last January also. Amy Hood predicted this was gonna happen. You gave us and downs, that's simply how it works.
Think it was down last January but I don't know why. There is probably a genuine reason for it.
There is no incentive to buy into a closed ecosystem with no exclusives. I wish they would just make windows lite or steam os bootable on the Xbox so long time fans who still own the console can get some enjoyment.
All consoles are closed eco systems. This in itself is not a problem but a closed eco system without exclusives is pointless when there’s alternatives that have them.
This is also why Microsoft has been marketing really hard for the elimination of exclusives in general. They are out of the console business and into publishing games and subscription services. They need exclusives to die so they can end the battle with console markets.
@yb it's games and services are are on PC, tablets, phones and TV's not just found on Console. Even it's games are on other systems.
It's not closed at all. It's games going everywhere is probably the worst idea MS did you're right about that.
You do know that DivineHand is talking about the hardware losses, not the games, right? The hardware is a closed system. It has seen two digit declines each year for at least 3 years in a row.
And Microsoft wants to release another super expensive console next gen? Bizzaro world economics over there. Phillip Bartholomew Spencer will be promoted on the strength of these loses. Lol
Their next console has to be released. I could only imagine how much R&D they've already put into their next platform.
Its a PC.. I don't think they spent a lot of money to R&D the idea of releasing a prebuilt PC. And they are not subsidizing it so by that token I don't see any reason why they wouldn't release it unless they pivot from hardware altogether.
They're just releasing a PC. And they don't intend to subsidize the cost so it's going to priced like any other PC and probably expected to ship PC-like numbers and not the many millions that consoles sell. After that, they'll eventually go third party and xbox hardware will be a thing of the past. Sega says hi.
master chief ‹3
if i had his voice i would always have my mic on when i play halo
My first submission approved!
On topic Master Chief seems like a pretty down to earth, cool dude. He loves his character and seems to be genuinely excited about doing more Halo.