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Nicholas Lovell
Home   >   Analysis and Opinion   >   Joe Ferencz’s analysis – how Roblox is eating Xbox’s lunch, and why Minecraft might be their best chance at fighting back

Joe Ferencz’s analysis – how Roblox is eating Xbox’s lunch, and why Minecraft might be their best chance at fighting back

By on July 10, 2026

It’s been a terrible week for games employees at Microsoft, and like most of the analyst class, my heart goes out to all the people affected through no fault of their own.

Over on LinkedIn, Joe Ferencz has convincingly argued that Xbox’s core market – US young adult gamers – have changed their behaviour of the past 6 years. No longer graduating from Roblox to Xbox, they are sticking with Roblox. Two killer statistics:

  • Per Circana, 18-to-24-year-olds now account for just 3% of US video game hardware purchases. Three years ago it was 10%.
  • The 17-24 cohort is now Roblox’s fastest growing age group – up more than 50% year over year last quarter. Users 13+ now account for roughly two-thirds of daily users and hours.

There is more analysis in his post. Together with a prescription for how Microsoft fights back. Hint: it starts with the 200 million MAU on Minecraft.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/xboxs-has-99-problems-roblox-1-joe-ferencz-2uqvc

About Nicholas Lovell

Nicholas is the founder of Gamesbrief, a blog dedicated to the business of games. It aims to be informative, authoritative and above all helpful to developers grappling with business strategy. He is the author of a growing list of books about making money in the games industry and other digital media, including How to Publish a Game and Design Rules for Free-to-Play Games, and Penguin-published title The Curve: thecurveonline.com