The boss of Xbox has insisted that sales of the console are constrained by supply and that there is “more demand than consoles available,” as Microsoft’s gaming business heads into the crucial holiday season.

Microsoft reported its FY27 Q1 results overnight, and the Xbox struggle is a familiar one despite new CEO Asha Sharma’s “reset” of the gaming business. During the three months ending September 30, 2026, overall Xbox revenue declined 2% year-on-year, although that’s an improvement on the 10% decline the previous quarter.

Xbox content and services revenue decreased 2% and 1% in constant currency, driven by “declines in third-party content and Xbox Game Pass, partially offset by growth in first-party content.” Xbox hardware sales, meanwhile, fell 14%. Xbox console sales, which have seen a number of price rises, have struggled for some time now, and Microsoft hasn’t reported a sales figure for the Series X and S for years.

Despite the financial struggles, Xbox is still a huge business. It brought in $5.379 billion in the quarter ($5.508 billion the same quarter last year). But Xbox is a small piece of the overall Microsoft pie. To put Xbox into context, Microsoft’s cloud computing platform, Azure, brought in an eye-watering $33.1 billion this quarter alone — six times more than Xbox.

It’s worth noting that the recently released Gears of War: E-Day and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 came after the end of Q1, so any revenue attributed to those games will be calculated in the current quarter’s results. Q2, by the way, also includes the likes of World of Warcraft: Forever, which looks like a surefire hit for Blizzard, and the behemoth that is Grand Theft Auto 6.

Sharma took to X / Twitter to discuss the results, insisting Xbox’s “accountability margin,” which is understood to be profit margin, improved this quarter. Sharma’s restructure of Xbox, which has seen thousands of staff lose their jobs, multiple studios leave the fold, and various projects shut down, was explained in the summer as part of an effort to improve this “accountability margin” figure. Xbox is now doubling down on its big hitters, such as Minecraft, Fallout, and The Elder Scrolls, in a bid to improve its financial outlook.

Minecraft and WoW Forever “set records,” (in the case of WoW Forever, we’re talking about the hugely popular beta). Neither Activision nor Microsoft has announced sales for Modern Warfare 4, instead pointing to the critical acclaim Infinity Ward’s shooter has enjoyed. “Call of Duty had its most acclaimed release in more than a decade,” Sharma said. PC platform revenue, though, grew “double digits” (we don’t know how much exactly, or what that means in dollar terms).

And then Sharma’s main point: “Console sales remain constrained by supply, with more demand than consoles available. We’re working to get more consoles into players’ hands, including through our expanded refurbishment program. We’re making progress, with a lot more work ahead.”

Last week, IGN reported on how Xbox was sending emails to customers reminding them that they could trade in their Series X and S consoles if they were collecting dust. The email was reportedly sent to customers in the U.S. who hadn’t used their console in some time.

The past year or so has seen console prices skyrocket thanks to the ‘RAMpocalypse’ sparked by generative AI companies such as OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Microsoft itself gobbling up components. As these AI companies vie for dominance and hoard all the RAM, prices soar for the end user while hardware is harder than ever to get hold of.

Console price rises and shortages come at the worst time for Microsoft but also for Sony, with November’s launch of GTA 6 expected to spark a surge of interest in all things gaming. Given the game launches on console only, Rockstar’s epic is sure to lead to a dramatic rise in console sales, but will Microsoft and Sony meet demand?

Microsoft’s outlook for Q2 and Xbox is surprisingly muted, given GTA 6 comes out and Modern Warfare 4 will count towards the bottom line. The company said that it expects growth in Xbox content and services to be in the mid to high-single digits, “up sequentially driven by the timing of content launches across both third- and first-party.”

“With content launch patterns through the year, we expect growth to be strongest in the second quarter, with some deceleration in Q3 and further moderation in Q4. Hardware revenue in Q2 should decline year-over-year.”