Mojang's block-themed blockbuster Minecraft had almost 132m monthly active users (MAUs) for during the three months ending June 30th, 2020.
That's according to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella (pictured), who told investors – as transcribed by Seeking Alpha – that this was a new record for the smash-hit title. That's up from the 126m users that Mojang said played Minecraft each month in May of this year. To date, the title has sold over 200m copies.
Nadella also reported that Xbox Live had almost 100m users. Revenue from the Big M's games business rose by $1.3bn year-on-year – or 64 per cent – the Xbox content and services division saw a 65 per cent increase in revenue.
This was due to – what else? – the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic, which has had people staying at home and looking for a way to pass the time. Xbox hardware revenue rose 49 per cent year-on-year, which is somewhat unusual given how late in the console cycle we are.
Cost of revenue – or manufacturing and R&D – rose 19 per cent year-on-year, costing Microsoft $1.9bn. This was driven by Microsoft's commercial cloud and gaming divisions, likely reflecting the investment the company is making in its xCloud streaming service and building Xbox Series X consoles and first-party titles.
