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Sony was Activision Blizzard’s largest customer by revenue in 2020, with Microsoft ranking fourth

Lunatic_Gamer

Gold Member
timi_cod.jpg


Niko Partners senior analyst Daniel Ahmad highlighted this information on Twitter, which was first released by Activision Blizzard in its annual filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021.

  • As can be seen in a spreadsheet below, Sony accounted for 17% of Activision Blizzard’s total net revenues for 2020, or around $1.37 billion.
  • It was followed by Apple (15%), Google (14%), and Microsoft (11%).
  • However, Sony’s share fell to 15% in 2021, losing first place to Apple and Google (17% each).
  • Microsoft, however, accounted for less than 10% of Activision Blizzard’s net revenue last year.




On top of that, Activision Blizzard noted that Sony and Microsoft were the two biggest customers in terms of gross receivables (sales, for which the company hasn’t received payment yet) last year, accounting for 22% and 20%, respectively.

This data shows the four platforms where Activision Blizzard makes the most money, with PlayStation being the leader on consoles.


 
Yeah, how did they only get 6% more than Microsoft with 2.5x the install base? Looks bad for Sony in comparison here.
Does it?
Cod sells best in the west and not world wide. PlayStations sell world wide. You won't see much sales of cod in a place like Japan or certain Europe, asian countries where Sony sells plenty of their systems.
It's doesn't seem to be what you're inferring here.
 
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reksveks

Member
To Sony is not about Acti-Blzz acquisition. Is about CoD.
Trying to parse that. You are saying that Sony only cares about COD? Maybe but that wasn't the point i raised. The point is that % of Sony's revenue related to COD/ABK is more important than the % of ABK's revenue that's on Sony platforms for regulators.

If publisher x makes 90% of their money on PlayStation but they only account for 0.001% for PlayStation, PlayStation ain't losing much if Xbox buys out publisher X.
 

ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
Trying to parse that. You are saying that Sony only cares about COD? Maybe but that wasn't the point i raised. The point is that % of Sony's revenue related to COD/ABK is more important than the % of ABK's revenue that's on Sony platforms for regulators.

If publisher x makes 90% of their money on PlayStation but they only account for 0.001% for PlayStation, PlayStation ain't losing much if Xbox buys out publisher X.
Sony dosen't care if it is free real state. This is why, when they talk about it, they are hyperfocused on CoD.

If regulators see Sony fricking out, they would pay more attention to it.

The acquisition by itself is not the issue. Is CoD the point of contention. As I said many times now. If the acquisition get approved with a condition, I bet that would be around CoD.
 

yazenov

Member
I find it interesting that PS4 outsold Xbox One almost 2,5:1 and yet Activision got 17% of revenue from Sony and 11% of revenue from Microsoft.
So, Activision got way more money from average Xbox customer then from PlayStation customer?

Who gives a damn about this obscure metric? Like so what? Most of the shoot bang crowd owns an xbox while the Playstation crowd plays more variety of games with a diverse taste.

All that matters are the total revenue at the end of the day and the Playstation is king. Unit sales matter and this is the reason why it matters.
 

reksveks

Member
Sony dosen't care if it is free real state. This is why, when they talk about it, they are hyperfocused on CoD.

If regulators see Sony fricking out, they would pay more attention to it.

The acquisition by itself is not the issue. Is CoD the point of contention. As I said many times now. If the acquisition get approved with a condition, I bet that would be around CoD.
Agree with those point but I don't think that these numbers have anything to say about the acquisition.

I also thought there would be a concessions about COD. I do wonder how far those concessions will go and what MS really wants out of ABK (specifically how much they value the King).
 

Jennings

Member
Congrats Sony, that's a big win with one of the biggest franchises in history. It's certainly one for the history books.
 

Godot25

Banned
Who gives a damn about this obscure metric? Like so what? Most of the shoot bang crowd owns an xbox while the Playstation crowd plays more variety of games with a diverse taste.

All that matters are the total revenue at the end of the day and the Playstation is king. Unit sales matter and this is the reason why it matters.
About that

24,87 billion for PlayStation
15,3 billion for Xbox

(calendar year 2021)

Install base
117 + 21 million PS4 + PS5 consoles
vs.
50 + 15 million Xbox One + Series X/S consoles

Still it does not make very much of a sense right? And basically confirms what Activision reports. That average Xbox customer is spending more than PS customer.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
I didn't expect it to be that close TBH, how is it that close?

How come Xbox customers spend more?
 
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yazenov

Member
Not to stop you from creaming your pants, but mobile is king. Playstation was in third place last year.

Due to the last console call of duty being extra shitty which was the more problem cause of the low sales on consoles. Blame the quality of the games, not the console players for not wanting anything to do with that turd.
 

Infamy v1

Member
Your ability to spin this is masterfully.

Interesting how you ignore others pointing out the same thing. I wonder why 🤭

About that

24,87 billion for PlayStation
15,3 billion for Xbox

(calendar year 2021)

Install base
117 + 21 million PS4 + PS5 consoles
vs.
50 + 15 million Xbox One + Series X/S consoles

Still it does not make very much of a sense right? And basically confirms what Activision reports. That average Xbox customer is spending more than PS customer.

That's the only way this makes sense, mathematically.

I didn't expect it to be that close TBH, how is it that close?

How come Xbox customers spend more?

CoD still has ties to Xbox due to the 360 generation, seemingly. That's what Sony was trying to pull away with the PS4 and why they are so aggressive currently because you have an entire gen of money spent that's about to go to waste.
 

yazenov

Member
About that

24,87 billion for PlayStation
15,3 billion for Xbox

(calendar year 2021)

Install base
117 + 21 million PS4 + PS5 consoles
vs.
50 + 15 million Xbox One + Series X/S consoles

Still it does not make very much of a sense right? And basically confirms what Activision reports. That average Xbox customer is spending more than PS customer.

Not really no.

What this only may infer is that Xbox players buy more FPS shooters than PS players on average. However, that does not hold true for other genre of games such as Rpgs, adventure games, Japanese games, souls games and so forth.

So yeah, your obscure metric is meaningless to publishers where total consumers and total revenue are more important for their bottom line.
 
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ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
Agree with those point but I don't think that these numbers have anything to say about the acquisition.

I also thought there would be a concessions about COD. I do wonder how far those concessions will go and what MS really wants out of ABK (specifically how much they value the King).
The drama among fanatics is also around CoD. But no one is talking about King for example. Or the fact that CoD mobile makes a shit ton of money too. (Even more that on consoles?).

I think king is an insane money maker right? Does MS needs that?....not necessarily.

Is Xbox dry AF regarding exclusive content? Yes they are.

So in a pragmatic way the "console IP" are way more valuable for Xbox. The question is in the big picture. And the answer will be how MS responds if there is a condition around CoD. That would tell us how much is King valuable to MS.
 
Yeah, how did they only get 6% more than Microsoft with 2.5x the install base? Looks bad for Sony in comparison here.

How about the fact that not the entire ps audience cares about cod? It's one of the biggest games in the world but still only sells to a small fraction of the ps userbase. Also, the xbox audience has always skewed towards fps games.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Interesting how you ignore others pointing out the same thing. I wonder why 🤭



That's the only way this makes sense, mathematically.



CoD still has ties to Xbox due to the 360 generation, seemingly. That's what Sony was trying to pull away with the PS4 and why they are so aggressive currently because you have an entire gen of money spent that's about to go to waste.
Interesting.
Not really no.

What this only may infer is that Xbox players buy more FPS shooters than PS players on average. However, that does not hold true for other genre of games such as Rpgs, adventure games, Japanese games, souls games and so forth.

So yeah, your obscure metric is meaningless to publishers where total consumers and total revenue are more important for their bottom line.
Yeah, agree. Deffo looks that way and what the evidence shows in this instance.
 

reksveks

Member
The drama among fanatics is also around CoD. But no one is talking about King for example. Or the fact that CoD mobile makes a shit ton of money too. (Even more that on consoles?).
Fanatics don't see the forest from the trees

I think king is an insane money maker right? Does MS needs that?....not necessarily.
Its the biggest part of ABK atm and generally the most profitable

Is Xbox dry AF regarding exclusive content? Yes they are.
Diablo 4 will be multiplat, OW2 is going to be and so is COD so they ain't getting much console exclusives in the short term. Activision won't really sort it out, they have even ruled out exclusive modes for COD effectively.

So in a pragmatic way the "console IP" are way more valuable for Xbox. The question is in the big picture. And the answer will be how MS responds if there is a condition around CoD. That would tell us how much is King valuable to MS.
Thats first bit is debatable. King gets them into mobile in a proper way which could be interesting if the OAMA/DMA passes, it gives MS a big option re: mobile app stores but yeah, it will be interesting to see what concessions they make.

Going back to Jim's comments, I wonder if even a discount on whatever the COD in-game currency for GP users would be upsetting to him.
 
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Kilau

Gold Member
About that

24,87 billion for PlayStation
15,3 billion for Xbox

(calendar year 2021)

Install base
117 + 21 million PS4 + PS5 consoles
vs.
50 + 15 million Xbox One + Series X/S consoles

Still it does not make very much of a sense right? And basically confirms what Activision reports. That average Xbox customer is spending more than PS customer.
Total install base doesn’t matter in this situation.

We need the split of CoD players on each system.

Edit: I guess it’s not even just CoD specifically. We need total users on all Actiblizz titles between the systems.
 
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ChorizoPicozo

Gold Member
Fanatics don't see the forest from the trees


Its the biggest part of ABK atm and generally the most profitable


Diablo 4 will be multiplat, OW2 is going to be and so is COD so they ain't getting much console exclusives in the short term. Activision won't really sort it out, they have even ruled out exclusive modes for COD effectively.


Thats first bit is debatable. King gets them into mobile in a proper way which could be interesting if the OAMA/DMA passes, it gives MS a big option re: mobile app stores but yeah, it will be interesting to see what concessions they make.

Going back to Jim's comments, I wonder if even a discount on whatever the COD in-game currency for GP users would be upsetting to him.
What I am saying is:

Putting candy crush on Xbox wouldn't be the win Xbox needs right now.

People have meme #CryingJim. It's fucking funny. But Jim has to do so. Anything favoring CoD on Xbox will make Jimbo poop his pants of anger and frustration.
 

hemo memo

Gold Member
If Sony can stop the crying misery over Cod Acti-Bliz deal and instead buy a meaningful purchase like Square Enix instead of the live servie-mobile studios.
 
About that

24,87 billion for PlayStation
15,3 billion for Xbox

(calendar year 2021)

Install base
117 + 21 million PS4 + PS5 consoles
vs.
50 + 15 million Xbox One + Series X/S consoles

Still it does not make very much of a sense right? And basically confirms what Activision reports. That average Xbox customer is spending more than PS customer.
Or PS customer has more options to spent his money e.g. more games to play means less people spend all they time in one or two games. In 2020 When the TLoU2, GoT, DS etc came people that had Playstation could buy a new games while the Xbox owners were scratching theirs balls until they bled or made bullshit claims like yours.
 

Infamy v1

Member
How about the fact that not the entire ps audience cares about cod? It's one of the biggest games in the world but still only sells to a small fraction of the ps userbase. Also, the xbox audience has always skewed towards fps games.

While I somewhat agree, the disparity is still very odd bevause your argument applies both ways.
 

CeeJay

Member
Who gives a damn about this obscure metric? Like so what? Most of the shoot bang crowd owns an xbox while the Playstation crowd plays more variety of games with a diverse taste.

All that matters are the total revenue at the end of the day and the Playstation is king. Unit sales matter and this is the reason why it matters.
Haha gave me a laugh.

You think that Sony are putting out a more diverse variety of games? Where are your proper RPGs, Sims, RTS, Metroidvanias, Arcade racers, etc etc?

Seems to me that Sony focus mainly on 3rd person action adventures with only really GT as a multi entry game that sits outside of that genre. There are one or two others such as Astro, Sackboy, Destruction All-Stars but these are quite few and far between and usually much smaller titles.
 

SaucyJack

Member
I find it interesting that PS4 outsold Xbox One almost 2,5:1 and yet Activision got 17% of revenue from Sony and 11% of revenue from Microsoft.
So, Activision got way more money from average Xbox customer then from PlayStation customer?

Does Microsoft have a platform other than Xbox I wonder? 🤔 🪟🪟
 

Three

Member
If Sony can stop the crying misery over Cod Acti-Bliz deal and instead buy a meaningful purchase like Square Enix instead of the live servie-mobile studios.
For what? So they block future xbox games? No thanks. Sony is already funding SE projects and making games for Sony's console.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
About that

24,87 billion for PlayStation
15,3 billion for Xbox

(calendar year 2021)

Install base
117 + 21 million PS4 + PS5 consoles
vs.
50 + 15 million Xbox One + Series X/S consoles

Still it does not make very much of a sense right? And basically confirms what Activision reports. That average Xbox customer is spending more than PS customer.


cat-shocked.gif






I think king is an insane money maker right? Does MS needs that?....not necessarily.


They don't need the immediate-money, they need a foothold into mobile gaming and that is what King is.

Phil directly said as much in the interview a couple of weeks ago.
 
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