Xbox has certainly come a long way since the launch of the original console back in the early 2000s. Nowadays, Xbox as a brand has become deeply synonymous with video games in general. Though, despite existing for a little over two decades, last year actually marked the most successful fiscal year for Xbox as a whole.
As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic beginning in 2020, Xbox and many other gaming platforms saw a substantial increase in revenue as a result of consumers looking to video games to occupy their time during the months of quarantine. While pandemic did comparatively less to influence Xbox's sales during 2021, the release of the Xbox Series X/S at the end of 2020 greatly influenced the sales of Xbox hardware and software going into 2021.
Over on Twitter, a video game insider named Daniel Ahmad revealed that Xbox's sales statistics for the fiscal year of 2021, which reported that Xbox accrued 16.28 billion, making it the most successful year Xbox has ever had. The overwhelming majority of that revenue came from content and services, such as Xbox Game Pass and Xbox Live subscriptions.
While the sale of Xbox consoles accounted for only 3.7 billion of the 16.28 billion in revenue, the release of the Xbox Series X/S helped to provide new players with access to a multitude of Xbox software and services. Plus, as a result of the Xbox Series X/S launch last year, hardware revenue increased by over 63% during the course of 2021.
It's amazing to see just how far Xbox has grown as a brand over the last two decades. Xbox's 20th anniversary occurred during November of last year, which Microsoft promptly released a plethora of content for Xbox fans to consume that highlights the storied history of Xbox. Although, plenty of fans are equally excited for what's to come.
It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Xbox going forward. The long awaited release of Halo Infinite certainly did a lot to promote the popularity and sales of Xbox's next-gen hardware, but there are also a number of other projects in the works that Xbox fans have plenty of reason to look forward to. For instance, the upcoming release of a new Perfect Dark game should make a number of longtime fans of the series hyped for a next-gen entry in the franchise.