While several gaming companies saw profits and losses throughout 2024, Microsoft seems to have performed the best in publishing. According to VGC, a report from data firm Ampere revealed that, thanks to the sales of games like the latest Call of Duty and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Microsoft was the biggest game publisher across PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
The report cites Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 as being one of the key contributors to this success, bringing in 38 million monthly players in November. It also saw a lot of play on Christmas, with 20 million cumulative hours. The report also credits the fact that Microsoft has been focusing on bringing its first-party titles to platforms other than Xbox as well. For instance, 64 percent of the Microsoft titles being bought on PlayStation Call of Duty.
According to Ampere, Microsoft is followed by Electronic Arts, which made $366 million in December 2024, compared to Microsoft’s $465 million. EA’s performance was credited to EA Sports FC 25.
Aside from publisher stats, Ampere’s report also revealed data on free-to-play titles. Fortnite took the lead in this regard, with a cumulative 30 million hours spent in the game on Christmas. Among the new releases, the report cites four key titles published by Chinese companies that had large player bases in December: NetEase’s Marvel Rivals, the Path of Exile 2 (by the Tencent-owned Grinding Gear Games), Papergames’ Infinity Nikki, and Tencent’s Delta Force.
Path of Exile 2 has reportedly generated $148 million through its pay-to-play Early Access release as well as its microtransaction shop. Marvel Rivals, on the other hand, is estimated to have 29 million monthly players.
“The growing global scale of major Chinese publishers adds a new dynamic to the console and PC gaming markets, and inevitably means added competition in what is already a hyper-competitive industry,” said Ampere research director Piers Harding-Rolls talking about the performance of these titles in December.
Regarding hardware, however, Microsoft is trailing behind quite a bit. Even the current-gen Xbox Series X/S isn’t selling at the same rate as the Xbox One did, according to a recent report by Circana’s Mat Piscatella. The report did indicate, however, that console sales have been on a downward trend for all companies, with 2023 having been a better year for hardware sales than 2024 was.
Considering the success that Microsoft has seen as a game publisher recently, here are our thoughts on what we can expect to see from the company on the gaming front in 2025.
