Xbox Games With Gold November 2014 Preview

Somehow, October has already come and gone. Some of you may be wondering what to wear for All Hallows’ Eve, or if you need to run out for some last minute treats. But the folks at Xbox are lining up the free games as part of Xbox Live Gold membership. November does not look to be the strongest lineup ever for the program though, with only a single game (again) on the Xbox One, and two Xbox 360 games that date back to several years ago. The Xbox One in particular needs to raise the bar with the program, especially now that the console has been out for a year and the catalog of games is actually OK. But enough complaining for now – let us see the games.

Xbox One

Volgarr the Viking

For several months now, there has only been a single game made available at no cost for the Xbox One. Last month, it was Chariot, and the saving grace for that game was that it was brand new to the store, and this month it is the same. Volgarr the Viking is a 2D side scrolling action game, which harkens back to the days of Contra and the like. Crazy Viking Studios developed this game which was originally launched on the PC just over a year ago. The side scroller is unapologetically difficult, and was brought to life with the help of a kickstarter campaign. This is another of the latest round of retro looking games with an 8-bit graphical feel to it, but it does include a soundtrack from Kochun Hu. The PC version scored a 76 Metascore and 7.7 user score on metacritic, and while Xbox pricing has not been announced, the PC version is currently selling for $12.

“Volgarr the Viking, the newest ID@Xbox game, will debut on Xbox One as a free download. For Xbox One gamers, this is a journey back to the days of yore, when times were tougher, and you really only needed a couple buttons to play a game.”

Xbox 360

Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise

On Saturday, November 1^st, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise will be the first Xbox 360 game available for the month. This is the sequel to the original Viva Piñata, from Microsoft Game Studios and Rare. This life simulation game was originally released in September 2008, so it is far from a new title, but it still has some appeal especially to a younger audience. It scored an 82 Metascore and 7.7 user score on metacritic, and normally sells for $14.99.

“Welcome back to Piñata Island where Prof. Pester’s latest scheme has lead to disaster. Visit the scorching desert or icy wastes to trap new species. Train them, dress them, then send them to a party! We’ve new Piñatas, new activities, new features and new secrets, so come visit and find out why people never want to leave. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see www.xbox.com/live/accounts.”

Red Faction: Guerilla

The final Xbox 360 game for the month is Red Faction: Guerilla, which will become available on November 16^th. This open world third-person shooter is from developer Volition, Inc, and was originally launched on the Xbox 360 in June 2009. This is the third installment of the Red Faction series, and was released to positive reviews. Red Faction: Guerilla scored a pretty high 85 Metascore and 8.1 User Score on metacritic, and normally sells for $19.99.

“Lured by the rich veins of Martian ore, miner Alec Mason arrives on Mars hungry for a new life. But the promise of a brighter future for Mason quickly fades. The Earth Defense Force, once protectors of Martian colonists, have adopted heavy-handed checkpoints and omnipresent armed patrols. As violence escalates, an underground resistance known as the Red Faction is swiftly gathering strength to combat the EDF. Mason’s quest for a new life has become a battle for survival, and the fate of the planet now rests with him and the Red Faction. There are no refunds for this item. For more information, see”

I can’t say I am particularly thrilled with the November lineup of games. The Xbox One selection is ok as a new release, but we have had a steady stream of indie game titles with GWG on the Xbox One and it is time to see some of the launch titles become available. The Xbox 360 games have historically had the better lineup due to the larger back catalog of games, and that is the case here again, even though they went way back in the catalog. Hopefully December brings a better lineup.

Source: Major Nelson Blog

OneDrive Will Offer Unlimited Storage For Office 365 Subscribers

It was only four months ago that Microsoft increased the available OneDrive storage for Office 365 subscribers to one terabyte, and apparently there was still room for improvement. Today, on the OneDrive blog, Microsoft announced that Office 365 subsc…

Microsoft Q1 FY 2015 Financial Results: Record Revenue On Strong Consumer Sales

This afternoon, Microsoft announced record first quarter revenue for its fiscal year 2015 which ended September 30. Revenue was up 25% year-over-year, and came in at $23.2 billion. Gross margin was up 12% year-over-year at $14.9 billion. As a percentage, Gross Margin was down however, which resulted in a lower operating income of $5.8 billion, which is down 8% from last year. Net income came in at $4.5 billion, which is down 13% from 2013. Because of this, earnings per share also slipped to $0.55 per share, down from $0.63 a year ago.

Microsoft breaks their product and services into two divisions. Devices and Consumer focuses on end user products such as Xbox, Surface, Lumia phones, and the related consumer focused software options. Commercial focuses on enterprise which means Server, System Center, SQL, volume licensing, and other enterprise software and services.

Devices and Consumer (D&C) revenue grew 47% to $10.96 billion, as compared to Q1 2014. On the D&C Licensing segment, Windows OEM revenue was down 2%, however there was growth in the number of licenses sold. Microsoft changed the licensing fairly substantially during their 2014 fiscal year, which results in Windows being no cost for a lot of the lower cost devices. Windows OEM Pro licensing was down 4%, which the company feels is in-line with normal business PC replacement cycles. This would also not cover any businesses which utilize volume licensing, with that revenue falling under the Commercial branch. Continuing with licensing, Office Consumer revenue was down 5% for the quarter, with that loss being expected with the move to Office 365 for consumers. Windows Phone licensing revenue was down 46%, which is not unexpected when the operating system license fee was removed. The Gross Margin for D&C Licensing declined 3%, which Microsoft accounts for due to the end of the Nokia commercial license agreement with Nokia’s phone business being purchased last fiscal year. Overall, D&C Licensing revenue was down 9% to $4.09 billion.

The next D&C segment is Computing and Gaming Hardware, which is a look at the Surface and Xbox platforms. Surface enjoyed a strong quarter with revenue coming in at $908 million. Surface Pro 3 interest is strong, with Microsoft seeing good sales to students, professionals, and enterprise adoption of their latest tablet.  Xbox sales were also up, with 2.4 million consoles sold in Q1. There was no break down of Xbox One vs 360 numbers provided. I’m sure Microsoft is hoping for better Xbox One sales, with the new console launching in 28 additional markets last quarter. This segment had a good quarter, with revenue up 74% to $2.45 billion, and Gross Margin was up 134% to $480 million.

Phone Hardware, which technically did not exist as part of Microsoft a year ago, had a solid quarter as well. Microsoft sold 9.3 million Lumias in Q1, which was a modest gain year-over-year. They are seeing better sales in Europe, and especially with the lower priced phones. It seems to be that this is where the Lumia brand is focused, with the majority of the product launches this year being lower cost devices. The former Nokia feature phone line “performed in line with the market for feature phones” and there was no additional information here. The Phone Hardware segment came in at $2.61 billion in revenue and had $480 million in Gross Margin, although the margin gain was partially from non-recurring items which means those gains will not carry forward for Q2.

The final consumer segment is D&C Other, which is the consumer cloud offerings from Microsoft. Office 365 Consumer (Personal and Home versions) is now up to 7 million active subscribers. This is a 25% gain from the previous quarter. This helps explain the traditional D&C Licensing drop for Office, with Microsoft seeing good success in the subscription model for Office. Search revenue was up 23% due to higher revenue per search in addition to search volume. Bing search share in the US was up 140 basis points to 19.4%. Worldwide figures were not given. Gross margin for the cloud offerings was down due to investments in online infrastructure, and clocked in at $310 million. Overall revenue was up 16% to $1.81 billion.

Commercial revenue is the bigger piece of the pie for Microsoft, and this side of the house had a revenue gain of 10%, with $12.28 billion in Q1. Gross margin for Commercial gained was up 9% to $9.91 billion. Breaking down the segment, Licensing was up 3% to $9.87 billion, with Server product revenue up 11% which was due to double-digit growth for SQL Server, System Center, and Windows Server. Windows Volume Licensing was up 10%, and Office Commercial products declined 7% due to the transition of customers to Office 365.

Commercial Other had a 50% revenue gain, with a Q1 revenue of $2.41 billion. This gain was heavily assisted by a 128% increase in Commercial Cloud revenue and the adoption of Office 365, and especially the higher priced SKUs. Customers are also purchasing additional cloud features such as Enterprise Mobility Suite and Azure Active Directory.

Fiscal Year 2015 has had a solid start for Microsoft, with record revenue for Q1. A little bit less impressive is the decline in net income. With a PC industry that has pretty much leveled off, the traditional businesses of Windows and Office are losing some of their luster. With Microsoft moving Windows to a no cost licensing model for lower cost PCs and smaller devices, we can expect Windows revenue to continue to drop over the next while. Low cost is generally higher volume, so this could mean a substantial decrease in revenue from the Windows team. However there are some good signs as well in the Consumer segment. Surface sales are almost at $1 billion for the quarter, but more importantly Surface is also making money. Anyone who follows Microsoft earnings will likely never forget the massive write down for the initial Surface lines, so it is promising to see the Surface team having some success. Also, as the traditional licensing method of Windows and Office has seen decreases, Microsoft’s cloud offerings are gaining a lot of traction and continue to see large gains in users and revenue.

On the Commercial side, it is interesting to see the strong gains because not only is the on-premise infrastructure seeing strong gains, with > 10% grown for Server, SQL, and System Center, the cloud based infrastructure, which at one point was thought to be a replacement for on-premise servers, also saw a 128% increase in revenue for the quarter. As companies move to the cloud for their computing needs, Microsoft has a strong offering here due to being able to provide both on-premise and cloud products that work together. It is fascinating to see double digit growth in a product like System Center, when someone looking in would assume a legacy product such as System Center, which is used to primarily manage desktops, would be replaced by a cloud solution like Microsoft Intune. Clearly businesses are seeing a need to expand into the cloud, but keep some or all of their existing infrastructure as well.

Unfortunately the Microsoft press release did not have any forward looking statements, as they were saved for the webcast which should be available by the end of Thursday. I will try and update this article with that information when it is released.

Source: Microsoft Investor Relations