Microsoft was the No.1 video game publisher in the world in December, as new strategy pays off
Microsoft's Xbox strategy is paying off in the software department
📈 Microsoft was the biggest video game publisher in December 2024
💰 The company’s software brought in $465 million
🔫 This was largely driven by Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
😏 The vast majority of Call of Duty sales were also on PS5
Microsoft achieved a historic milestone last month, becoming the biggest games publisher in the world. Gamers spent $465 million on titles that belong to Microsoft, which was largely been driven by Call of Duty: Black Ops 6.
According to data firm Ampere (thanks, VGC), Microsoft was the No.1 publisher by some distance, beating EA, which generated $366 million over the same December 2024 period.
It shows that Microsoft’s of strategy purchasing studios and publishing its games elsewhere is at least bringing in more revenue, though it has a large investment to recoup. It spent around $69bn to acquire Activision Blizzard and $7.5bn on Bethesda, plus hundreds of millions on other smaller studios.
Microsoft is bringing Indiana Jones and The Great Circle to PS5 in the spring, and Xbox head Phil Spencer recently told Destin Legarie that the company isn’t ruling any games out, including Starfield.
“To keep games off of other platforms, we don’t think that’s the path. That’s not the path for us. It doesn’t work for us,” Spencer said.
Microsoft controversial brought several games to PS5 and Nintendo Switch last year, and Spencer has already pledged Microsoft’s support for the Nintendo Switch 2.
Spencer also made it quite clear that any new Xbox console won’t be home to exclusive games you can’t get anywhere else. Instead, Microsoft will focus on hardware capabilities, though Spencer didn’t elaborate on exactly what that would entail.
While software sales are definitely up, Xbox console sales continue to fall. Sales of the Xbox Series X|S are trailing behind the Xbox One in the US, and the PS5 has established an unassailable lead this generation.
Microsoft said its committed to building hardware, but it will need address the lack of demand for its hardware if a new Xbox does release.
Adam Vjestica is The Shortcut’s Senior Editor. Formerly TechRadar’s Gaming Hardware Editor, Adam has also worked at Nintendo of Europe as a Content Marketing Editor, where he helped launch the Nintendo Switch. Follow him on X @ItsMrProducts.