Tech giant Microsoft (MSFT) is up fractionally in the closing minutes of Tuesday’s trading, but reports suggest that its gaming arm may be suffering a few key issues that could weigh on share prices in the future.
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The start of the troubles for Microsoft emerged with news about the Xbox Series X hardware refresh. Indeed, it is coming out later this year, just in time for Christmas. However, there are two key problems here: the $600 price tag and the utter lack of hardware upgrades. The only real improvement seen here is its new availability in a two-terabyte drive size.
In addition, there are issues with the games. Several games are migrating to PlayStation from Xbox—another four at least—and there are some issues with getting exclusives on Xbox itself. New reports suggest that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle is now a timed exclusive only, while Black Myth: Wukong is getting delayed to December for Xbox thanks to issues of split-screen co-op.
With former exclusives turning into timed exclusives and major names getting pushed back by months over features that should have been in place, everyone is wondering when the good games actually show up. And none of this is good news for Microsoft as a whole.
Is Microsoft a Buy, Hold, or Sell?
Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 31 Buys assigned in the past three months, as indicated by the graphic below. After a 32.84% rally in its share price over the past year, the average MSFT price target of $504.23 per share implies 18.71% upside potential.
