Some documents that have surfaced in recent hours during the new hearings which pit the Federal Trade Commission on one side and Microsoft – committed to defending the attempted purchase of Activision – on the other, reveal information that is often the subject of debate and almost shrouded in mystery: but how much does Xbox earn? Is it doing better or worse than PlayStation?
The latest leaks – which now risk putting Phil Spencer in real trouble and forcing him to justify statements and ideas from years ago – contain some essential data on those who are revenue and operating income of the Redmond company in the gaming sector. Microsoft, in fact, has always been very selective about the financial data to share with the public. Among these, those in the gaming section, number of consoles sold included. That number, in fact, has always been obtained from market surveys and analyzes conducted by third-party companies that are experts in the sector.
Now, although this number remains absent, we have some data on gross revenues (revenue) and actual profits (operating income). It turns out that Microsoft comes second in both categories: in revenue it is second to PlayStation, while in the “operating income” section it gives way to Nintendo (which dominates disproportionately with its almost 3 billion dollars, data referring to the fiscal year 2022). From the data compared in this way we can try to hypothesize which of the three companies makes best use of the proceeds.
In terms of gross revenues, PlayStation is the one making the biggest noise, obviously thanks to a very large installed base and game catalog compared to the competition: over 18 billion dollars. which then become less than a billion and a half in terms of operating income. Xbox, on the other hand, has to settle for a more humble fixed figure of 12.8 billion dollars and from these a good 1.5 billion dollars precisely emerge. In terms of gross proceeds, Nintendo “chases” with just under 12 billion dollars only to then (precisely) squeeze the greatest amount of actual profit from these, around 25%.
(FYI) Xbox is in 2nd place for both profit and revenue
While PlayStation is in third place for Profit but first place for revenue. They spend 1.46 times more to make 5.7% less than Xbox.
Also, Nintendo is in first place for profile and third place for revenue. They spend 0.9… pic.twitter.com/N17S3cNz9v
— Idle Sloth💙💛 (@IdleSloth84_) September 21, 2023
