In today’s gaming landscape, Microsoft is going down a new path. Launched at the end of 2024, their “This is an Xbox” approach to putting Microsoft-published games in as many places as possible surprised many folks accustomed to the days of exclusivity and console tribalism. It’s a gamble, but one that the company can afford to make seeing as its success is waning in the wake of huge runs at PlayStation and Nintendo. The gamble may already be paying off as data shows that Microsoft ended 2024 as the top games publisher in December.

According to data firm Ampere via VGC, Microsoft-published games brought in about $470 million during December 2024. This includes sales across its own Xbox consoles as well as PC and PlayStation. A huge force behind this half-a-billion revenue stream was Call of Duty Black Ops 6. Second place EA during that same month came in nearly $100 million below Microsoft’s sales performance, showing a huge gap between the company and other major publishers in the business.

With console sales for the Xbox Series family of devices failing to keep up with the relatively disappointing Xbox One, PlayStation doesn’t need to worry about Xbox catching up in the hardware units sold race. Truly, there might not be much of a race left in the traditional sense. Microsoft seems poised to become a third-party publisher that also happens to create hardware to play those games according to Xbox CEO Phil Spencer on the Gamertag Radio podcast. It’s not a move to compete in the console wars, but in many ways, end them altogether.

What does Xbox do to make its hardware compelling for console gamers who could hypothetically pick up a PS5, or some future PlayStation, and play all of Xbox’s published titles? It’s hard to say, but I know as someone who is very cozy in the Xbox UI ecosystem that I’m not eager to just never buy an Xbox console, handheld or home, in the future. We’re in uncharted territory, and with PC gaming growing but not to a rate that will leave console gaming extinct any time soon, the path forward is both unclear and extremely exciting.

Do you have any thoughts on the way Microsoft is changing its approach to game publishing? Let us know in the comments!

 

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