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Sony is 4th largest publisher, ~ equivalent to ATVI, in 2021 global console publishing (revenue), nearly double the size of Xbox+Bethesda

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We've got enough information from the recent MS filing to tabulate the rankings of game publishers. I am assuming revenue is the metric here, as if it was unit sales Epic would not be so high and the graph prior on Meta vs Giphy refers to revenue from what I remember. Source is FMN (?), seems to something that is meant to be internal. Regularly cited by MS.

Screen-Shot-2022-11-26-at-10-27-25-PM.png

  1. Nintendo - $5.2B [estimate from FY report, ¥112 rate]
  2. EA - $3.716B [FY report]
  3. Take Two - $2.517B [FY Report]
  4. Sony - ~$2.5B [MS CMA response]
  5. ATVI - $2.637B [FY Report]
  6. Epic Games
  7. Ubisoft - $1.44B*** [FY Report]
  8. Xbox+Bethesda - $1.25B+ [MS CMA response]
  9. Bandai Namco - ~$1.1B*** [Estimate from FY report]
  10. Square Enix - <$0.56B*** [FY report]
  11. Embracer
  12. Konami
  13. Wargaming
  14. CDPR - $0.074B*** [estimate from FY report]
  15. Roblox - $0.06B [estimate from DAU (3% console) and FY report]
Some pubs are missing like Capcom. Also, 2021 FY report revenues have ATVI above T2, but they're close together.
***JP/other pubs who report revenue in yen/other are effected by FX. I've just taken the current FX rate, lazily.

CADE had a slightly different ranking:

Screen-Shot-2022-10-06-at-11-45-06-AM.png
 
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seeing Epic there was weird until I remembered Fortnite. that do be bankin.

feels like MS should be more reliant on Nintendo's success in some way to show that Sony will be fine
 
The acquisition of ABK results in MS having up to 20% market share in software and 20% in hardware, while Sony have up to 10% in software and up to 50% in hardware, am I reading that right?

Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that would be blocked for anti competitiveness. It’s bringing Microsoft more in line - though still behind - Sony. A stronger 2nd or 3rd place (if we’re counting Nintendo) competitor makes for a more healthy industry.
 
2021 was a rather awful year for Activision Blizzard. I would be far, far, far more interested in the 2022 numbers with Warzone 2, Modern Warfare 2, Diablo Immortal, Overwatch 2, the new World of Warcraft expansion, and whatever else they had.
 
5th
The acquisition of ABK results in MS having up to 20% market share in software and 20% in hardware, while Sony have up to 10% in software and up to 50% in hardware, am I reading that right?

Doesn’t sound like the kind of thing that would be blocked for anti competitiveness. It’s bringing Microsoft more in line - though still behind - Sony. A stronger 2nd or 3rd place (if we’re counting Nintendo) competitor makes for a more healthy industry.
Crazy how much money made ABK in their weakest year (which is actually the third one). The same can be said about T2 with GTA, guess microtransactions do really bring a hefty amount of money.

So Microsoft with ABK will only be behind Nintendo? It would nearly double Sony's revenue
 
5th

Crazy how much money made ABK in their weakest year (which is actually the third one). The same can be said about T2 with GTA, guess microtransactions do really bring a hefty amount of money.

So Microsoft with ABK will only be behind Nintendo? It would nearly double Sony's revenue

2021 was ABKs strongest year by revenue of all time. Activision as well had its 2nd strongest year of all time, around $400M behind the peak of FY 2020.
Activision was helped notably by COD mobile, and releases like THP and Crash 4, to offset Vanguards decline.

I'm guessing with a big year ABK would be up there with EA/Nintendo by itself.

The chart also does not include Bungie for Sony, as it was closed in 2022. So Sony is likely near $3B as well, with further growth from Playstation studios expected.

One has to remember this is console only. No PC or mobile. Combined, ATVI and EA are in another league compared to everyone else.
 
One has to remember this is console only. No PC or mobile. Combined, ATVI and EA are in another league compared to everyone else.
o_O o_O o_O holy smokes!! Didnt know the difference between these two and the other was that massive!! Really crazy.
 
One has to remember this is console only. No PC or mobile. Combined, ATVI and EA are in another league compared to everyone else.
No PC? How the heck does Wargaming get on the list then? That's a complete headscratcher. Like 80+% of its audience is on PC.
 
I’m curious how you are estimating Nintendo’s publishing revenue from their fiscal report? Also bit confused, SIE seems…too close to Nintendo given the far higher volume of first party sales Nintendo has. Given SIE sold 44 million 1st party in the previous FY, Nintendo should have sold over 2x that number. Nintendo give an average exchange rate in their IR for the period reported.
 
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In FY3/2022, Nintendo made ¥665.18B in revenue from first party software sales. Nintendo listed an average exchange rate of $1 = ¥112.34, so that converts to $5.92B.

I'm not sure if this figure includes NSO subscription revenue or not, but even if it does, Nintendo's non-subscription first party software revenue should still comfortably exceed $5B.
 
Sony's down pretty significantly for this FY (26.5% by units) as well hitting a historic low since they started giving 1st party figures so I wonder if they'll get pushed out of the top 5. GOW this quarter should help but will it be enough?

No PC? How the heck does Wargaming get on the list then? That's a complete headscratcher. Like 80+% of its audience is on PC.
Same for Roblox, it's pretty clear these aren't the actual top 15 pubs but likely just a selection to encompass the industry. Capcom and maybe Sega would've made it otherwise.


In FY3/2022, Nintendo made ¥665.18B in revenue from first party software sales. Nintendo listed an average exchange rate of $1 = ¥112.34, so that converts to $5.92B.

I'm not sure if this figure includes NSO subscription revenue or not, but even if it does, Nintendo's non-subscription first party software revenue should still comfortably exceed $5B.
Nintendo sold at least 102.99m of their own games in FY21 (only million sellers, not full catalog software sales, no digital only software, no DLC or MTX). Even if we assume a $40 ASP (which way too low!) that's still over $4B revenue on just what we know of. $3.8B really just isn't a realistic figure for that year, there's no calculus I can figure to get there that's not severely undercounting?
 
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Sony exclusives get multiple X the online hype of pretty much all Multi plats combined, tho. i believe that should be accounted. compare ragnarok vs take two's nba 2k for example, which did you hear praised more or hear more about online? it's not even in the same galaxy.

anyways, sony=2x ms publisher makes sense, as that's roughly the typical ww sales ration of the two companies consoles the last several years.
 
Nintendo sold at least 102.99m of their own games in FY21 (only million sellers, not full catalog software sales, no digital only software, no DLC or MTX). Even if we assume a $40 ASP (which way too low!) that's still over $4B revenue on just what we know of. $3.8B really just isn't a realistic figure for that year, there's no calculus I can figure to get there that's not severely undercounting?

I'm curious as to how got to that number. Mind explaining?
So are these numbers accurate or not? Thread is irrelevant without the op responding...
 
So are these numbers accurate or not? Thread is irrelevant without the op responding...
Nintendo's number doesn't seem to be accurate. When I saw EA just barely behind Nintendo I knew that can't be right. Must be a poor estimate.
 
I’m curious how you are estimating Nintendo’s publishing revenue from their fiscal report? Also bit confused, SIE seems…too close to Nintendo given the far higher volume of first party sales Nintendo has. Given SIE sold 44 million 1st party in the previous FY, Nintendo should have sold over 2x that number. Nintendo give an average exchange rate in their IR for the period reported.
Nintendo's number doesn't seem to be accurate. When I saw EA just barely behind Nintendo I knew that can't be right. Must be a poor estimate.
Just spitballing here, but if they're going by fiscal reports the discrepancy can probably be explained by the differences in Nintendo and Sony's metrics. The trial is probably using metrics familiar to Sony and Microsoft, which for example includes digital only games and 100% of 3rd party sales. The 70% cut for 3rd parties is generally subtracted in expenses.
Nintendo on the other hand, iirc, only counts games with physical releases in their reports. And for 3rd party sales they subtract the 70% cut FIRST, than put just their 30% cut in the revenue.

So basically, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, Nintendo counts fewer things towards revenue but in return have less to balance out via expenses.
 
Just spitballing here, but if they're going by fiscal reports the discrepancy can probably be explained by the differences in Nintendo and Sony's metrics. The trial is probably using metrics familiar to Sony and Microsoft, which for example includes digital only games and 100% of 3rd party sales. The 70% cut for 3rd parties is generally subtracted in expenses.
Nintendo on the other hand, iirc, only counts games with physical releases in their reports. And for 3rd party sales they subtract the 70% cut FIRST, than put just their 30% cut in the revenue.

So basically, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, Nintendo counts fewer things towards revenue but in return have less to balance out via expenses.
Isn't this about their self-published games, not all of their software revenue?
 
So are these numbers accurate or not? Thread is irrelevant without the op responding...
At least for the Nintendo numbers, no.

This is the correct figure calculated from Nintendo's FY3/2022 report:
In FY3/2022, Nintendo made ¥665.18B in revenue from first party software sales. Nintendo listed an average exchange rate of $1 = ¥112.34, so that converts to $5.92B.
 
Then the op is wildly inaccurate regarding Nintendo, does that not call into question the other numbers?
Some of them are taken straight from their FY reports, but the others I don't know.
 
Some of them are taken straight from their FY reports, but the others I don't know.
Just saw that, op should redo his Nintendo estimate. Hard to take the list seriously with the Nintendo number being that off.
 
I’m curious how you are estimating Nintendo’s publishing revenue from their fiscal report? Also bit confused, SIE seems…too close to Nintendo given the far higher volume of first party sales Nintendo has. Given SIE sold 44 million 1st party in the previous FY, Nintendo should have sold over 2x that number. Nintendo give an average exchange rate in their IR for the period reported.

In FY3/2022, Nintendo made ¥665.18B in revenue from first party software sales. Nintendo listed an average exchange rate of $1 = ¥112.34, so that converts to $5.92B.

I'm not sure if this figure includes NSO subscription revenue or not, but even if it does, Nintendo's non-subscription first party software revenue should still comfortably exceed $5B.

I'm curious as to how you got to that number. Mind explaining?

As mentioned in the OP, *** refers to FX conversion where I have simply used the current rate, rather than check the FY rate and FX impact. Is ¥112.34 the rate for FY 2021?
I was using:
  • total games revenue - hardware revenue = software revenue
  • software revenue - $0.92B (NSO subs from Brazil doc) = games revenue
  • games revenue*first party sales ratio = publishing revenue
I did not know they posted 1st party software revenue by itself though. What page is that on?
 
As mentioned in the OP, *** refers to FX conversion where I have simply used the current rate, rather than check the FY rate and FX impact. Is ¥112.34 the rate for FY 2021?
I was using:
  • total games revenue - hardware revenue = software revenue
  • software revenue - $0.92B (NSO subs from Brazil doc) = games revenue
  • games revenue*first party sales ratio = publishing revenue
I did not know they posted 1st party software revenue by itself though. What page is that on?
Nintendo considers NSO part of software revenue (Page 4), so the ratio of first party software sales (page 5 which has the exchange rate averaged for the FY) utilizes total software sales, and thus (probably) includes NSO. Also the NSO estimation itself is not reliable. Nintendo never released that separately and Brazil never reached nintendo.

Just for reference what page is 2.5 billion for Playstation and 1.25 billion for (Microsoft+Activision)stated in MS's response or are you basing it off the chart?
 
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To explain my calculations:
3c20c5aa825ce574d6504feae2e6c5035867be5b16d28eff49350a6b96ab6e9a.jpg

Total Software Revenue = Digital Sales ÷ Proportion of Digital Sales = ¥359.6B ÷ 42.6% = ¥844.13B

c784fc2b5670c6ffa10b3720abd44091d300ac51edee900c1053629e886283c6.jpg

First-party Software Revenue = Total Software Revenue × Proportion of first-party software sales = ¥844.13b × 78.8% = ¥665.18B

Then, ¥665.18B ÷ (¥112.34/$1) = $5.92B
 
Nintendo never released that separately and Brazil never reached nintendo.

We don't know for sure, however private data used by regulators uses data that the public is not privy to. This can include internal analyses from other companies which use known data aggregators like NPD, GSD etc or could be a compilation of industry data sent to them.

Either way, its going to be significantly more accurate/expensive to obtain, which is why they make it private.

Just for reference what page is 2.5 billion for Playstation and 1.25 billion for (Microsoft+Activision)stated in MS's response

p.18 3.17

"
Sony is the fourth largest publisher globally (with a share of [5-10]%), roughly
equivalent in size to Activision and nearly double the size of Xbox.
"

First-party Software Revenue = Total Software Revenue × Proportion of first-party software sales = ¥844.13b × 78.8% = ¥665.18B

Then, ¥665.18B ÷ (¥112.34/$1) = $5.92B

Without NSO:
  • ¥844 - (0.932x¥112) = 844 - 104 = 740
  • ¥740*0.788 = ¥583B
  • ¥583/112 = $5.2B
 
Looking it up that EA console figure also includes services (aka: EA Play, Ultimate Team, etc). For 2021 their Full game revenue (including PC/mobile) was only $1.613B. Shows just how reliant the company is on supplemental revenue, FUT was $1.62B alone for FY21 (aka: more than all full games sales combined).

Given the EA figure includes services though, why are we subtracting NSO from Nintendo?
 
We don't know for sure, however private data used by regulators uses data that the public is not privy to. This can include internal analyses from other companies which use known data aggregators like NPD, GSD etc or could be a compilation of industry data sent to them.

Either way, its going to be significantly more accurate/expensive to obtain, which is why they make it private.
More accurate(?) but is that even good enough still? Nintendo keeps digital tightly under wraps and with no idea of how these subs are split between tiers which are wildly different in cost, I don’t see a reason to trust Brazil’s NSO revenue number. Sure it might be better than some shmoe’s but still there is very little way for them to have a truly accurate number to use.
p.18 3.17

"
Sony is the fourth largest publisher globally (with a share of [5-10]%), roughly
equivalent in size to Activision and nearly double the size of Xbox.
This just illustrates a problem with this list. The order of take 2, PS, and activision doesn't make sense with the FY numbers. PS shouldn’t have a solid number and should be a range. Xbox is bound by that range. We also don’t know what exactly is going into these figures, as
Looking it up that EA console figure also includes services (aka: EA Play, Ultimate Team, etc). For 2021 their Full game revenue (including PC/mobile) was only $1.613B. Shows just how reliant the company is on supplemental revenue, FUT was $1.62B alone for FY21 (aka: more than all full games sales combined).

Given the EA figure includes services though, why are we subtracting NSO from Nintendo?
Points out.
 
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More accurate(?) but is that even good enough still?

Yes, its the next best thing after FY data.

Again there is a reason why this data is usually redacted in anti-trust lawsuits, and the data government regulators get as the reference doc is as accurate as you can get without direct company data. Even then, we do not know if Nintendo did supply governments with data.

This just illustrates a problem with this list. The order of take 2 and activision doesn't make sense with the FY numbers. PS shouldn’t have a solid number and should be a range. Xbox is bound by that range. We also don’t know what exactly is going into these figures, as

Not really, T2, ATVI and Sony are all really close, with small error margins.

Points out.

This is about console games publishing and the marketshare of said games. Sub services should not be included. I did not know EA included sub revenue, from CADE, its around $356M.
 
Yes, its the next best thing after FY data.

Again there is a reason why this data is usually redacted in anti-trust lawsuits, and the data government regulators get as the reference doc is as accurate as you can get without direct company data. Even then, we do not know if Nintendo did supply governments with data.
Again CADE did not reach Nintendo. The source was Microsoft to CADE (except for PS, which was replaced by PS’s provided number as noted) So it’s most likely a guess.
Not really, T2, ATVI and Sony are all really close, with small error margins.
The uncertainty is the issue given it just doesn’t work out well with the numbers we have, especially with the publishers missing for the bottom of the list. Guess my issue is more with the list itself.
This is about console games publishing and the marketshare of said games. Sub services should not be included. I did not know EA included sub revenue, from CADE, its around $356M.
Also again, CADE’s chart odd sourcing.
 
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I think using wrong sourcing is worse than having no data. Remember, there is a reason why Chartzzz is called out everytime.

Unless we can get data with proper sourcing. It is better to take the data with grain of salt.
 
If Microsoft's subscription estimate for Sony was wrong and had to be replaced by the Sony supplied figure, I don't know why we're extending the benefit of the doubt for Microsoft's subscription estimate for Nintendo? Or why we're even subtracting it and not holding 3rd parties to the same scrutiny with service revenue, virtual currency, etc? Actually do we know the estimates MS supplied for themselves and Sony also exclude subscription and recurring revenue? Is it only fgs or is it inclusive of dlc, mtx?

Anyway, full revenue platform and segment breakdowns for last FY for the big 3rd parties for a deeper comparison:

In billions of USD


EA
Console: 3.716
PC + other: 1.195
Mobile: 0.718

Live services + other: 4.016
Full game: 1.613


ABK
Mobile: 3.182
Console: 2.637
PC: 2.323
Other: 0.661

In-game, sub + other: 6.492
Product: 2.311


TT
Console: 2.516
PC + other: 0.855

Service + other: 2.281
Product: 1.091


It's pretty clear all 3 lean heavily on recurrent revenue (mtx, virtual currencies, subscription, live services, etc) even on console to a great extent. Nintendo's full game revenue alone could realistically outpace all 3 combined on console, it's pretty amazing both how strong Nintendo is in this field and also generally how unrecognized that seems to go. Nintendo truly is the unsung market leader in traditional console games, by a gigantic and overwhelming margin.
 
Doesn't mean much when Activision brings in more with its software, and iirc some stuff under Sony's numbers may not be 100% gaming related.

Still, Sony is a top player which shouldn't be a surprise given that the PS division is one of the supporting pillars of the company unlike 20 years ago.
 
49f5a2e8e9b7ea1f9de349a10d8a5c7aef50292b447c60e353b04ed2a5a85eb9.jpg

NSO revenue in FY3/2022 = ~50% × (43.8% × ¥359.6B) = ~¥78.75B
This converts to ¥78.75B ÷ (¥112.34/$1) = ~$701M

This means Nintendo's overall non-subscription first party software revenue was $5.92B - $701M = ~$5.22B. The figure listed in the OP is pretty close to correct.
 
49f5a2e8e9b7ea1f9de349a10d8a5c7aef50292b447c60e353b04ed2a5a85eb9.jpg

NSO revenue in FY3/2022 = ~50% × (43.8% × ¥359.6B) = ~¥78.75B
This converts to ¥78.75B ÷ (¥112.34/$1) = ~$701M

This means Nintendo's overall non-subscription first party software revenue was $5.92B - $701M = ~$5.22B. The figure listed in the OP is pretty close to correct.
Good catch. Although OP’s number is only correct because they kept subtracting Microsoft’s incorrect NSO revenue from software revenue before separating first party software.
 
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