![Xbox Was December's Biggest Publisher, and 64% of Its Sales Were on PS5, PS4 1](https://images.pushsquare.com/903bf98754cda/xbox-was-decembers-biggest-publisher-and-64percent-of-its-sales-were-on-ps5-ps4-1.900x.jpg)
For the month of December, Xbox was the biggest video games publisher in the world — according to a recent number-crunching analysis.
The data comes from Ampere, which states that $465 million was spent on games owned and published by Microsoft, making it the largest publisher of them all last month.
This shouldn't come as much of a surprise, really — Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was the company's biggest driver of sales in December, as you might expect, while the well-received Indiana Jones and the Great Circle also launched in that time frame.
One interesting statistic is that 64 per cent, nearly two thirds, of December's consumer spending on Microsoft's video games was on PS5 and PS4. Though this will broadly be thanks to Black Ops 6, this might partly explain why Xbox is now all-in on releasing its games on rival systems.
Xbox was ahead of EA in December, which itself raked in $366 million, largely thanks to EA Sports FC 25.
Having swallowed up ZeniMax Media (Bethesda) and Activision Blizzard, we expect December 2024 will be far from the only time Xbox is the leader in terms of software dollar sales. The company's strategy shifting into multi-platform launches will certainly help it, too.
What do you make of this? Discuss in the comments section below.
[source videogameschronicle.com]
Comments 50
My favourite Xbox consoles are the PS5 and (eventually) Switch 2. Thanks Satya!
No surprise considering who they own. It’d be actually impressive to me if Xbox wasn’t an IP of Microsoft with its deep pockets. Which allows for these purchases and things like subsidized gamepass. As a third party publisher Xbox studios is big. Might as well try to get Ubisoft once they have another disappointing fiscal year. I’m typed this from my mobile iPhone Xbox haha.
And what is crazy about that is, Indiana Jones wasn't even available for PS5 for that month lol.
Gamepass on PS5 when?
@FinneasGH Sony won't allow it i bet.
Also might have something to do with the fact that Playstation gamers have no choice but to 'buy' but Xbox/PC gamers have a 'choice' - buy or play on Game Pass and so a high fraction of the players on these 2 platforms are not going to be adding to that 'Sales' data.
Playstation too has a larger player base and with '2:1' numbers of Consoles sold, you'd expect that PS would have 2/3rds vs 1/3rd of the total revenue - assuming that the game is equally as popular on both. If Sony has 100m Consoles and Xbox 50m, both sell to 50% of their Playerbase, Sony sell 50m to Xbox 25m and would be 2/3rds of the revenue generated.
Regardless, only a few games have or appear to release 'Day 1' on PS5 and I don't see it as being that different from Sony releasing their games on PC when they are not selling Hardware/Software anymore. When Indiana Jones comes to PS5, Avowed, South of Midnight or whatever other Xbox 'Exclusive' is selling Hardware/Subs/Software. By the time Spider-Man 2 released on PC, its not selling PS5 hardware or Software anymore so why not sell it to those who won't 'buy' a PS5 to play it??
And Xbox will be the biggest publisher on PlayStation for many months to come in the future. Maybe not all of this year but many of them.
And they haven’t even started with Switch 2.
Then sell 30 million Xbox consoles a year and 35 million game pass subscriptions.
Then PC game sales etc
And it’s not looking all that bad.
Surely at some point Sony must think
Mmmmm Horizon Forbidden West available to all Swtich 150 million console owners day one on release. Obviously I’m just pretending this game and console. But you get the idea for the Switch 2 and future Sony studio releases and maybe even PC day one.
This will all definitely change and go that way in the future.
Thats good news, Xbox as a big successful publisher is great and it might mean I can save money not needing to buy as many consoles in the future but still play those awesome Xbox games I want
MS been a 3rd party publisher is what they should have been from the moment they bought Bethesda.
Xbox as a publisher is fine because then I don't have to buy their hardware or read Pure Xbox anymore
Actually, your xbox is a PS5. MS should pay royalties to Sony. Imagine Sony did not agree on those titles. MS would have closed the xbox as a whole. They are dead in the watter without PS5 money.
Microsoft's strategy is preparing for a future where bespoke hardware doesn't matter/exist.
Sony would be very wise to start planning to release their games onto Switch 2 (if they aren't already).
@OldGamer999
It won't happen for quite a few years, until console gaming as we know it has changed or shifted. As you say, pretending the switch, switch 2 could run all playstation studio games. Sony, let alone the playstation business make their money from being the platform people buy their games and make their 30% cut on eveything sold. In my opinion playstation putting their studio games day 1 on other platforms, especially switch, is the day they give ther entire user base the option of not needing a playstation along with their 30%. Don't get me wrong they are always thinking about these things and testing waters but for me this would be like handing nintendo the knife to gut them.
Microsoft be like “sales are actually so much better huh” 🤔
(465 x 0.64) x0.3 = 89.28
That’s how much of that revenue was kept by Sony for doing practically nothing. 89.28m. That’s why hardware still matters.
Now, if only I could use an Xbox controller on PlayStation.
@ButterySmooth30FPS not reading pure xbox is always a bonus
Technically they are three publishers in one which makes these reports results obvious and skewed especially when Bethesda and Activision are still meant to be acting independently.
@BAMozzy this is a long comment to basically say, xbox gamers don't buy games
@OldGamer999 i could see some ps games being on the switch but never will be on xbox
xbox loses a lot of money on premium game sales due to gamepass.xbox should stick to what it does best being a third party publisher..
@Flobbots
Ive often argued that Sony should only really care about breaking even on 1st party software - using it lure in and keep happy PS gamers in the ecosystem is where the big money is at.
I have seen 1st hand, casual gamers enticed just by SM:MM and GOWR (seperate cases), and in at least 1 of these cases, them buying a PS5 had others buying PS5 in a knock on effect.
@Rich33
100% agree. Fi the sake of the health of Sony, Playstation Studios and the health of the industry (keeping completion alive). I hope they generally see it that way too. Plus I've got nothing against them releasing their 1st party on PC later either toomake more off them. Just make sure the juice is utterly squeezed from sales on their own platform first.
Never Nintendo though (at least current generation titles).
Great that Microsoft is seeing success as a publisher. I want to see them continue to be healthy and profitable, and a source of competition for Sony. Having said that, I'm also really happy that they're putting more of their games on PS5. As far as I'm concerned, we should share the love the other way as well, but that's extremely unlikely.
@MasterChiefWiggum They’re no longer any competition to Sony tbh, this year they’ll be just another partner/publisher for Sony and Nintendo.
@FinneasGH the only way Gamepass ends up on PS would be if/when Xbox goes 3rd party then I expect an Ubisoft+ like Gamepass tier with the 1st party games from MS on it and Sony taking a cut of subs.
@johnedwin
Maybe on Switch or Switch 2.
As always it will depend what makes the most profits when all said and done.
But I think Sony will look into these things more from a financial viability point of view.
Trojan horse moment. MS is using PS to stay alive all the while keeping gamepass active. Slowly but surely xbox is going to become more attractive once MS starts using Playstation money to get day 1 games on gamepass.
@UltimateOtaku91
Bit of a salty "but, but, but" comment there.
@OldGamer999 sell 30 million xbox consoles a year? what???
Removed - flaming/arguing
Xbox is officially a third party publisher.
@Flobbots
Yeah, I think Sony need to be wary of releasing too early on PC as their is some market overlap, but its certainly not the same as releasing on other consoles.
XBox releasing their games on other consoles (with the exception of COD which is determined by law) has really signalled their death as a competitive console, like it or not (I have mixed opinions on whether I do).
Though you could say for all the fuss & noise, and the low sales, porting to PC hasn't really been worth their while!
Removed - flaming/arguing
@RZ-Atom Is it good? I never touched a Xbox controller but it seems cheap and outdated compared to the PS5 one.
@B0udoir Xbox controllers are my least favorite of any modern console (I even prefer DualShock 3 to Xbox controllers), but they're serviceable.
@Rich33 I think it helps a little bit. When Ghost of Tsushima popped off on PC last year, the game saw a bump on the Playstation best selling list as well. A second wind.
I do think they should go back to the two year delay for releases though. Building up pent-up excitement in the PC crowd.
Oh well... when you got CoD that tends to happen.
@Magatsuhi Even with COD and Indiana Jones Gamepass just saw 2% growth last quarter. They need it to stay alive. PC gamers still prioritise Steam, Playstation gamers buy more (look at NG2) and Nintendo has people locked in their system.
Xbox's main route for competition isn't console anymore but to siphon off PC gamers into using Gamepass Subs. Hence the focus on PC Gamepass.
@RZ-Atom “Now, if only I could use an Xbox controller on PlayStation”
That would be the most Epic gaming news ever. I love PS games and all but i do not love nor really like their controllers cause of the thumb stick layout. If this became a thing, oh my! I would buy way more games on PS then have since the PS3 came out with the worst controller i ever used in my life. PS3 console was awesome, but that Six Axis. Yikes!
Removed - trolling/baiting
@Magatsuhi This is not a Trojan Horse moment at all. The story of Trojan horse goes that they used that as a deceptive tactic to invade into enemy territory. Here they have literally handed their neck to the enemy. Two different things.
Xbox used Microsoft money to buy the 2 biggest publishers for $100b to literally keep things the same.
PlayStation is even making more money from COD than before, because they had 80-20 cut with Activision before, but now its 70-30. They also have no marketing deal for COD so they dont spend a single dime to market COD. So PlayStation is winning in all ways here and making substantially more money while at the same time cementing its dominance as THE platform for Microsoft Publishing games (64% sales). Its literally making 3rd party publisher of MSFT more and more entrenched into it.
Xbox is just smokescreening its fanbase by saying "This is an Xbox" just to make the pill swallow a bit easier. Just like Phil said last year "Only 4 games, please dont expect more games will come to PS or Nintendo in the future" and look what we have here.
Xbox being a 3rd party publisher and getting success is being celebrated when they are just like take two, ubisoft etc bcos xbox fanboys see this as a victory, when all they did is essentially say we are a 3rd party publisher yay
Even Take two, Ubisoft, EA etc have most of their sales on PS5, PS4 this is not a surprise or news.
Your PlayStation is helping fund Xbox's ambitions. It's honestly a brilliant idea, the gatekeeping PlayStation is sticking too just feels outdated in an age where we can freely choose to play whatever we want wherever we want.
I think one of the things I dislike the most is Sony has made it to where we can't buy game keys on digital market spaces. I get most of my games digitally and being locked to the PlayStation store seems backwards in 2025. It feels very apple like in nature. On my Xbox and even PC I can buy digital games from Walmart, Amazon, Target, CDkeys and whatever other store I'm forgetting lol. Still I do love my PS5 though and I'm looking forward to some amazing exclusives coming out way.
@BAMozzy yes this is the obvious truth. Microsoft likes to really brag about this. MS would make even more money without subsidized gamepass. With their ambitions to be a big publisher they need for most people to pay outright. The reality is subsidized gamepass was created as it is now to make up for their position in the market since Xbox one.
@AdamNovice but they have hardware
@OldGamer999 yep any criticism of either console and you get accused of being a fanboy
@breakneck but q1 saw 43% increase i think they will be just fine this year
PlayStation players subsidizing GamePass. Not to get all console war-y about it but PlayStation customers still actually pay for their games. I was looking at the Xbox physical game sales and it's virtually non-existent at this point.
It's a win-win for everyone, both Xbox and PlayStation customers. PlayStation players get more choice and Microsoft gets another revenue stream to keep GamePass solvent so they can keep their digital rental service going for people that go for that. I don't see an obvious downside.
I guess the only big one is I still believe exclusives establish your brand and draw people in to your ecosystem, and this might work against that. But I guess the common wisdom is exclusives don't matter anymore, it's all about services now, if you listen to the MSoft executives. And when have they ever been wrong?
@B0udoir Well, to be honest you sound a little prejudice.
@HonestHick I wish Sony would remove the restriction to play PS5 games with a DualShock 4 (Sony's finest design to date)
However, they won't do that as then people won't have to buy replacement controllers when the inevitable stick drift rears its ugly head.
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