While Microsoft posted impressive third quarter financial results with revenues up 17 percent, and net income increasing by 20 percent. According to The Verge, there are areas of concern regarding Microsoft Surface and Xbox hardware revenue.
Although Microsoft’s “cash cows”, MS Windows and MS Office helped the software giant to make 61.9 billion dollars in revenue. Microsoft Surface hardware saw a 17 percent decline, with Microsoft predicting further declines for the 4th quarter.
Then to compound soft hardware sales. Microsoft also announced that while Xbox content and service revenues were up by 62 percent. Xbox hardware sales over the Christmas period had dropped a massive 31 percent. Which seems to confirm a December 2023 IGN report, that states that Sony is outselling Microsofts Xbox consoles 3 to 1.
However, it’s not all bad news for Microsoft’s gaming division. As thanks to Xbox Game Pass and Activision Blizzard revenues, gaming revenue is up 51 percent. Which means that the gaming market is healthy, so perhaps Microsoft just needs to workout exactly what its Xbox strategy actually is.
For us having just sold our Xbox series X. We feel that this generation of Xbox is done. However as PC gaming in general is still very healthy. For now we are happy to use a Steam Deck. True the Steam Deck is not as powerful as an Xbox, and there is a good chance that future AAA titles will not run on this handheld hardware. But gaming on a Steam Deck tends to be cheaper, and in our opinion the Steam Deck is far more fun.
However what’s your opinion? Is Xbox in trouble? Do Microsoft need to refocus, or give up making gaming consoles. Should they produce more exclusive Xbox titles, or produce more games for PlayStation and Nintendo consoles.
Current projects
At any given time, we usually work on multiple projects. So while we continue to produce our beginners guide on setting up a Synology NAS. We have also been working on videos relating to Synology routers, Synology BeeStation and setting up an Asustor NAS.
However as we have to methodically work through the process of video capture, script writing, audio work and then editing. Producing these videos is often very time consuming, particularly our “how to videos”. So we just want to thank you for all your support and patients.
Early Access content
This month we will be posting to Early Access, a Synology NAS beginners video that looks at installing and configuring Hyper Backup. For those that don’t know, Hyper Backup is a free Synology package that will allow you to backup your NAS. Which is something we recommend everyone with a NAS, should be doing on a regular basis.
We also plan to release a video on how you can turn a Synology router into a file server. While there are numerous limitations in doing this, it can be useful for basic file sharing on a budget. Then hopefully towards the end of the month we will be releasing a third video, which looks at 10 useful terminal commands you can use on a Synology NAS.
This months content
This month we will be doing a little spring cleaning and releasing a number of videos that were originally in early access. However as we have a lot of videos that need to be released, just for this month we will be releasing new content twice a week.
While we have configured our Synology NAS to act as a file server, when a user accesses shared folders, they will also see folders that they can’t access. So to avoid confusion we are going to demonstrate how you hide shared folders from users who do not have permissions to access those folders.
Then for anyone who has already configured the Firewall on their Synology NAS. You may have noticed, that your NAS no longer responds to pings. So our second Synology tip of the month will demonstrate how you make your NAS once again respond to a ping.
Then because we noticed that last month’s video on configuring and using Synology Photos, mentions manually backing up photographs and videos from your smartphone. We thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate how you do this. So we will be releasing videos for iPhone and Android, showing you how you can manually access a smartphone’s camera roll from a computer.
Then for the rest of the month we will release videos looking at factory resets including: how you factory reset a Xbox Series X or S and factory resetting a Google Nest WiFi pro.
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