Microsoft Says 2015 Was "The Best Year" for Xbox

Also promises the "best lineup" for the Xbox One in 2016.

During the Credit Suisse Technology Broker Conference, Microsoft's Corporate Vice President for Windows and Devices Marketing Yusuf Mehdi spoke about the performance of Xbox this year, next year’s lineup, and the outlook for Xbox Live across consoles and Windows 10.

"On Gaming, Gaming has been pretty big success case. Gaming, think about it in two pieces: there is a traditional Xbox console business where we compete with Sony, and there we have had probably the best year we have ever had for Xbox, and it’s still on the back of the greatest game lineup of the Xbox history.

So if you like games, this is the year to get an Xbox. We have Halo 5 launching. We have Minecraft on Xbox. We have Gears of War, Tomb Raider… Best lineup. Next year will also be the best lineup. That leads to really a great success on it.

But the other interesting thing, is now we are bringing that Xbox gaming value prop to other devices, in particular the PC."

Mehdi continued by comparing Xbox Live on PC to the service on consoles, also mentioning in passing the opportunity of building a subscription business on Windows:

"And then you have the ability to effectively now start to get Xbox live in all these games that you are using, whether it’d be Solitaire or Minecraft and now what we see is, we have almost the same number of Xbox live monthly active on Windows as we do on the console.

To be fair it’s not the same: the console uses our Xbox Live Gold, paying subscribers. These are free customers, but the ability to build a subscription business on the back of that now, you can start to see some light for that opportunity."