Microsoft's AI Strategy Drives 40% Revenue Growth in Q1 FY 2026

"Game On" is The Fly's weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.VIDEO GAME SPENDING:Circana analyst Mat Piscatellathe release of Activision's"Call of Duty: Black Ops 7" marked the 18th consecutive year that a "CoD" franchise release has been the best-selling game of its release month, while PS5led hardware in both unit and dollar sales for the month of November. Total projected spending across video game hardware, content and accessories fell 4% when compared to a year ago, to $5.9B, in November in the U.S. Hardware, accessory and console content declines drove the change. The average price paid for a new unit of video game hardware in the US during November 2019 was $235. In November 2025 it was $439. 3.9M units of video game hardware sold in the US in November 2019. In November 2025 it was 1.6M, Piscatella noted. PlayStation 5 was November's best-selling hardware in both units and dollars, the first time this has occurred since the launch of the Nintendo Switch 2. Nintendo Switch 2 ranked 2nd for November across both units and dollars. Other top-selling games for the month were Electronic Arts'"Battlefield 6," Take-Two's"NBA 2K26," EA's "Madden NFL 26" and "EA Sports FC 26," Nintendo's "Pokemon Legends: Z-A," and Sony's "Ghost of Yotei."OVERTIME WORK:Staff at Sony'sNaughty Dog games studio, known for the "Last of Us" and "Uncharted" franchises, are working mandatory overtime to finish a demo of their upcoming title "Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet," as the studio infamous for crunching on projects revives a now frowned-upon practice in the games industry, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier. For the past seven weeks, the developer has been pushing employees to work extra long hours to prepare for an upcoming review of the demo by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony's PlayStation business, Schreier says, citing people familiar with the situation. The game is set for release in mid-2027, the author says, citing people familiar with the schedule.BUY NINTENDO:Freedom Capital upgraded Nintendoto Buy from Hold with a 13,340 yen price target. The shares have come under significant pressure in recent weeks, declining 20% in the month of December alone driven by concerns around memory pricing, but commentary from Nintendo suggests that memory pricing concerns may be overdone and the company is still in "the early innings of the promising" Switch 2 cycle, the firm tells investors.HOGWARTS LEGACY:Warner Bros. Discoveryits 2023 video game "Hogwarts Legacy," a game based on the "Harry Potter" franchise, has sold 40M units total. The game is available on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and Switch 2.Clickto check out recent Media Buzz Sentiment on Warner Bros. Discovery as measured by TipRanks.MORE VIDEO GAME NEWS:Disneydoesn'tRobloxa safe platform.A legalbetween Sonyand Tencentover the release of Tencent's game "Light of Motiram" has concludeD.

BTIG assumed coverage of ServiceNow with a Buy rating and $1,000 price target. Two years after launching Now Assist, ServiceNow has built a robust platform for human and AI agent collaboration, featuring the AI Control Tower for management and governance, and partnering closely with Microsoft (MSFT) to power agentic AI orchestration across the entire enterprise, the analyst tells investors in a research note. In its bull case, BTIG sees ServiceNow continuing to operate above the Rule of 50, with high-teens top-line growth and mid-20% free cash flow growth, the firm added.

Phillip Securities lowered the firm's price target on Microsoft to $540 from $550 and keeps an Accumulate rating on the shares. The firm says the company is aggressively into cloud and artificial intelligence infrastructure.

DA Davidson analyst Gil Luria keeps a Buy rating and $650 price target on Microsoft, noting that the company will stay front of the line for OpenAI spend, which will keep it as the fastest growing hyperscaler in a wide range of scenarios. OpenAI still has one of the best frontier models, some of the deepest talent, and ChatGPT still has about 75% share of the AI chat market, and while OpenAI's over-committing, inflating expectations, and asking for federal government guarantees has caused a backlash across the AI trade, its valuable assets are still there, the analyst tells investors in a research note.