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[MSFT CMA PF response] Global game sales volume of publishers across console platforms in 2021

enpleinjour

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Surprised no one caught onto this valuable data reference. MSFT included a approx to scale chart on the unit sales of each publisher and their platform splits in 2021, something we rarely see.

Screenshot-2023-03-16-at-13-01-06.png


Through the art of pixel counting, one can work out the marketshares of each publisher, the Playstation, Xbox and Nintendo splits and the total sales of 1st party games. Pixel counting error is somewhere around ~0.5% (publishers total marketshare).

Again, this is only game unit sales, not MTX/DLC, not revenue from what I can tell. It's also not exhaustive of all publishers and games. Simply adding up calendar year PS total software sales and approx calendar year Nintendo total software sales results in a higher total than whats reported here (calculated by using Sony's publishers marketshare and FY reported 1st party sales to find total sales being shown in this infographic).

Figure 6 above is an illustration of the relationships between game publishers and the
three consoles which the CMA identifies as part of the same console market.26 The top
10 game publishers are separately identified. It is compiled by reference to global game
sales in 2021 and is approximately to scale. The diagram does not include free-to-play
games such as Fortnite but, if included, the same points of principle (and scale) could

be made.

The source is redacted (suggests to me a mixture of private third party data and internal data, if it was for instance IDG, MSFT usually quotes IDG) but it lines up with FY report data from the few data points we get:
  • ATVI FY21 report PS:XB split = 15:9 = 62.5% PS (includes MTX)
    • Here its 61%
  • PS 1st party/total software sales CY21 = 13%
    • Here its ~15%
  • 1st half FY21 Ubisoft reported 65:35 PS:XB split
    • Here its 65:35
  • The general rankings of publishers is in line with marketshare rankings seen in other docs from the case:
  • Data that does not fit: total software sales, the ratio between Sony and Nintendo 1st party software sales seems off (?)
Screenshot-2023-03-22-at-01-10-23.png

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Oh my god something must be very wrong with Microsoft if their revenue on Switch and Sony systems is that close to their own. Minecraft is a beast on Switch, we know this, but it's like... are they making much on their own hardware... or is this a sign they should do more on Switch and other platforms? Lord knows how much money they leave on the table by not doing so, like putting Rare's catalog in purchasable form on Switch (both their Nintendo stuff and their MS-era stuff). and maybe their Japanese library on Switch as well (Blue Dragon for one).

Halo on Switch has also been a LONG requested thing that still hasn't happened yet. Even ports of Vanilla 1 and 2 from the OG Xbox could make SERIOUS bank.
 
Oh my god something must be very wrong with Microsoft if their revenue on Switch and Sony systems is that close to their own. Minecraft is a beast on Switch, we know this, but it's like... are they making much on their own hardware... or is this a sign they should do more on Switch and other platforms? Lord knows how much money they leave on the table by not doing so, like putting Rare's catalog in purchasable form on Switch (both their Nintendo stuff and their MS-era stuff). and maybe their Japanese library on Switch as well (Blue Dragon for one).

Halo on Switch has also been a LONG requested thing that still hasn't happened yet. Even ports of Vanilla 1 and 2 from the OG Xbox could make SERIOUS bank.

The data is a bit loose, but this is units sold not revenue. The values have a correlation but can't be considered interchangeable.

Other than obvious ones like Minecraft, we'll also be counting things like deeply discounted copies of Skyrim and Fallout 4 on Playstation in these figures as being "one sale" the same way that Msft's own first party output full priced sales would be. Additionally, this isn't including PC, where Msft has launched day and date for 5+ years. And it's not considering other revenue sources like Gamepass etc etc. 2021 specifically also saw a high profile Playstation exclusive being shipped by Microsoft (Deathloop - not a massive seller but enough to be worth mentioning).
 
Can someone explain the very small lines going from Sony to the other 2? What game(s) has Sony published on other systems?
 
It’s gotta be MLB The Show on those consoles.
Maybe for Xbox but it wasn't on Switch in 2021. I'd guess it's catalog sales of Aniplex's indie stuff (Unties).

edit: actually I'm not sure indies are included, or Other would probably be a whole lot bigger. Maybe it's FGS (packaged+digital) and Aniplex had a couple Switch games by then (Emiya Family, Tsukihime).
 
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Sad to see Square Enix not even be considered a major player anymore but they have to reap what they sow and get what they deserve.
 
Yep, pretty sure this is packaged (+digital) FGS and excluding digital only games. In 2021 Switch sold 234,070,000 total games using this definition and their 1st party million sellers that year moved 93,770,000. That doesn't align exactly with the chart but then Nintendo also likely sold some tens of millions of software that didn't make Platinum in their IR.

edit: Sony 1st party is 48,500,000 for 2021 but that includes digital only games and excludes Aniplex. Total PlayStation 4+5 software is 266,700,000 but again including digital only... but, uh, that doesn't square with the chart at all relative to Switch? Something's way off...
 
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Yep, pretty sure this is packaged (+digital) FGS and excluding digital only games. In 2021 Switch sold 234,070,000 total games using this definition and their 1st party million sellers that year moved 93,770,000. That doesn't align exactly with the chart but then Nintendo also likely sold some tens of millions of software that didn't make Platinum in their IR.

edit: Sony 1st party is 48,500,000 for 2021 but that includes digital only games and excludes Aniplex. Total PlayStation 4+5 software is 266,700,000 but again including digital only... but, uh, that doesn't square with the chart at all relative to Switch? Something's way off...
Small correction: Sony shipped 294.1M copies of PS4 + PS5 software in CY2021, including digital-only software.

Based on shipment figures, PlayStation SW sales were 26% higher than Switch SW sales in CY2021, but the diagram suggest PS SW sales were 65-70% higher than NSW SW sales. Microsoft must be missing a bunch of data somewhere.
 
Small correction: Sony shipped 294.1M copies of PS4 + PS5 software in CY2021, including digital-only software.

Based on shipment figures, PlayStation SW sales were 26% higher than Switch SW sales in CY2021, but the diagram suggest PS SW sales were 65-70% higher than NSW SW sales. Microsoft must be missing a bunch of data somewhere.
Oh, shit, I had CY22. 😓

Either way they don't line up, even with giving PS a digital only advantage.
 
Oh my god something must be very wrong with Microsoft if their revenue on Switch and Sony systems is that close to their own. Minecraft is a beast on Switch, we know this, but it's like... are they making much on their own hardware... or is this a sign they should do more on Switch and other platforms? Lord knows how much money they leave on the table by not doing so, like putting Rare's catalog in purchasable form on Switch (both their Nintendo stuff and their MS-era stuff). and maybe their Japanese library on Switch as well (Blue Dragon for one).

Halo on Switch has also been a LONG requested thing that still hasn't happened yet. Even ports of Vanilla 1 and 2 from the OG Xbox could make SERIOUS bank.

If this is indeed unit sales, then it makes sense that MS’ first party unit sales would be low on their own platform. Everything is on Game Pass.
 
While this kind of data is interesting, it doesn't tell the whole picture. especially when it comes to Microsoft. Game Pass hugely cannibalize unit sales to costumers on Xbox.
 
Thanks for these informations @enpleinjour.

Can you add split by platform for Microsoft and Playstation 1rst party sales ?

Playstation 1st party is bascially a pixel width for other platforms so ~2% other, 98% Playstation
Xbox 1st party:
  • 44% Xbox
  • 30% PS
  • 26% Nintendo
Since its so small, error margin is ~4%

Small correction: Sony shipped 294.1M copies of PS4 + PS5 software in CY2021, including digital-only software.

Based on shipment figures, PlayStation SW sales were 26% higher than Switch SW sales in CY2021, but the diagram suggest PS SW sales were 65-70% higher than NSW SW sales. Microsoft must be missing a bunch of data somewhere.

What were Nintendo's CY21 software sales?
I think its because this isn't 100% of the market, rather its the Top 10 and maybe then next 5/10 publishers in the Other section.

On Nintendo discrepancy. I used their IR graphs on 1st/3rd party sale units and 1st party software sales by FY (the Q4 report shows Q4 sales, so you can work out CY sales from that):
  • Nintendo FY22 1st party = 114M
    • CY21 = 112M
  • Sony CY21 1st party = 37.3M
  • Using the OP ratios, that would give Nintendo a CY21 of (91/43)*37.3 = 79M
    • I think Nintendo 1st party may only be physical sales here
    • 79/112 gives a digital ratio of ~30%
While this kind of data is interesting, it doesn't tell the whole picture. especially when it comes to Microsoft. Game Pass hugely cannibalize unit sales to costumers on Xbox.

This data is pretty invaluable. We get publisher splits by platform for the first time in decade+. EA having 75% of sales on Playstation vs 25% on Xbox is a huge difference. ATVI being more Xbox leaning than any other publisher is also noteworthy.

I estimated Playstation getting around 70% of software sales and Xbox 30%, globally, so its good to see it all line up.

In terms of Gamepass, we already got revenue numbers:
 
Nintendo's 29 platinum sellers only (games that sold 1m+) were 93.77m for CY21. That's excluding Switch digital only (10 games) and non-platinum catalog (47 games) sales for that year.

Based on what we've seen of Nintendo digital ratios, 30% is just too low overall post-Covid to be realistic but Nintendo's packaged platinum titles in just CY21Q2-4 did add up to 74.84m which isn't far off from making the Nintendo/Sony ratio work. I also doubt MS would exclude Nintendo digital if they could help it, they want both Sony and Nintendo looking as large as possible for this comparison and the Nintendo numbers aren't exactly hard to come by looking at their IR.

Sidenote but Capcom does give packaged only (no digital) shipment splits annually but it's by FY. For FY22 it was;

3,750,000 PS4+PS5
3,600,000 Switch
500,000 Xbox
 
This data is pretty invaluable. We get publisher splits by platform for the first time in decade+. EA having 75% of sales on Playstation vs 25% on Xbox is a huge difference.
It makes sense that EA gets a comparatively higher unit sales revenue from PlayStation compared to the other big publishers shown since EA Play is included with Game Pass Ultimate on Xbox.

I was surprised by Capcom's 36/64 split personally. Thought the Xbox portion would be smaller than that.
 
It makes sense that EA gets a comparatively higher unit sales revenue from PlayStation compared to the other big publishers shown since EA Play is included with Game Pass Ultimate on Xbox.

I was surprised by Capcom's 36/64 split personally. Thought the Xbox portion would be smaller than that.

Game sales volume tells me its game unit sales. EA is so split due to FIFA being huge in EU, where Playstation is 80% compared to Xbox's 20%.

Yeah surprised by Capcom as well. Its below Western devs.
 
FIFA sells significantly more on Switch than Xbox at this point from what we know with the trackers (and catalog Switch outdoes PS too in some places), but you wouldn't know that looking at those EA lines. I'm not sure that's the lone difference maker here, FIFA's gigantic but most of that's due to revenue (and let's be honest, a giant chunk of EA's revenue at large) in FUT.
 
Maybe in regions where Xbox is very weak, but in the UK and US the Xbox versions are definitely outselling the Switch versions by a gigantic margin.
Are they? I know we get UK launch splits that always favor Xbox (though 23 tied on Switch and Series X) but I thought we weren't getting the sku based Charttrack charts anymore? And NPD seems like a mystery in general tbh, zero insight there.

And that's pretty much it for strong Xbox markets.
 
Are they? I know we get UK launch splits that always favor Xbox (though 23 tied on Switch and Series X) but I thought we weren't getting the sku based Charttrack charts anymore? And NPD seems like a mystery in general tbh, zero insight there.

And that's pretty much it for strong Xbox markets.
Xbox digital for FIFA is way, way, way bigger than that on Switch.
 
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