What you need to know
- Microsoft Gaming is a new entity within Microsoft which includes Bethesda, Activision-Blizzard and Xbox.
- As of last quarter, the division is bigger than Windows thanks to the Activision-Blizzard acquisition and the continued growth of mega-franchises like Fallout, Minecraft and Overwatch.
- To this end, Microsoft’s heavy investment in games has made the company one of the leading gaming console publishers, rivaling PlayStation.
Even ten years ago no one would have expected such a thing to happen.
Already seen once Derek Strickland on TweaktownMicrosoft’s Xbox platform seems to have practically taken over the storefront of its Arch console rival thanks to its massive content investment strategy.
Microsoft bought Activision-Blizzard in a deal last year. The deal was worth more than $70 billion when it closed and gave Microsoft control of Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and other multi-billion dollar franchises. Microsoft now owns Bethesda, which recently launched its hit TV show Fallout in collaboration with Amazon. It owns Minecraft, which is still one of the biggest games in the world, if not the biggest. Microsoft has the best game of all time, Doom, which can be played on literally anything. Well, you get the point.
Regardless, Microsoft has focused its efforts on its core strengths, primarily software and finance. To this end, it has effectively become one of those countries, if not the only one die PlayStation’s biggest player, an amazing transformation that no one expected ten years ago.
Microsoft currently has more games in the PlayStation Store’s top 25 bestsellers than Sony. The list includes two Fallout games and two first-party games from Microsoft that were previously only available on Xbox consoles: https://t.co/wE2trMBy0y18. April 2024
According to an analysis by Strickland, seven of the 20 best-selling games ever on PlayStation are franchises owned by Microsoft. As expected, Call of Duty is on top, followed by Overwatch 2, Sea of ​​Thieves, Fallout 4, Minecraft, Fallout 76 and Grounded.
Fallout 4 and Fallout 76 are a big push for the popular TV series that just came out Amazon Prime. Sea of ​​Thieves is coming to PlayStation for the first time since the console’s exclusivity restrictions were lifted. Overwatch 2 just got a new season with some much needed changes. Well, Call of Duty and Minecraft are just Call of Duty and Minecraft.
It represents a brave new world for Microsoft where bloated costs, runaway inflation and stagnant silicon prices have forced the company to break with tradition to achieve more growth. All of this doesn’t mean it’s getting out of developing its own hardware brain, as Microsoft learned the hard way with Windows Phone what happens when you deviate from the platform equation entirely. In fact, Microsoft has repeatedly confirmed over the past year that it is working on new Xbox consoles to compete with PlayStation, which is now supported at least in part by selling games on PlayStation’s own store.
The gaming landscape is changing
When Valve released the Steam Deck, it was perhaps ironic that it included both Xbox and PlayStation “exclusive” titles. The “console-exclusive” Sea of ​​Thieves ran side-by-side with the “console-exclusive” God of War game on Steam, making the entire console war obsolete. In fact, Microsoft has signaled its intention to open up the Xbox itself to a similar policy, allowing competing stores to access the Xbox platform in the same way that Steam Decks can run Battle.net and Genshin Impact Launcher when you’re ready to play a few things. Optimize.
As console gaming margins shrink due to mobile and PC gaming, owners of closed platforms are increasingly rethinking their approach – especially given the hostile regulatory landscape in the US and EU as the two regions compete with Apple to open up its platforms. before the competition. Microsoft seems to be ahead in some areas here. Will we one day finally see PlayStation games running on Xbox console hardware via Steam? Probably not, but honestly, crazier things happen in games these days.
