Report Reveals How Activision Blizzard Merger Would Quickly Make Xbox a Live Service Juggernaut
EA is currently the most popular games publisher across PlayStation and Xbox by monthly active users (MAUs), according to new data from Ampere Analysis. But Xbox stands to surpass it if the Activision Blizzard acquisition goes through.
According to Ampere Analysis, EA has consistently been the top publisher across PlayStation and Xbox based on share of MAUs since September, which is when Ampere Analysis started tracking. Speaking to IGN, analyst Piers Harding-Rolls says he suspects EA's dominance has gone on "for some time" prior.
Image Credit: Ampere Analysis
Since September, EA has consistently held above 16% of the market share of MAUs. Epic and Activision Blizzard have battled over second place, hovering between 9% and almost 15% of MAU market share, with Activision Blizzard overtaking Epic in October and November thanks to the launch of Overwatch 2 and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. Epic, of course, continues to rely primarily on Fortnite.
As for the first-party platform holders, Microsoft has held between 6% and 8% of the MAU market share during that time, trailing Take-Two. Sony has been on Microsoft's heels, though it did overtake Microsoft briefly at the end of last year around the release of God of War: Ragnarok.
Why is Microsoft largely beating out Sony for MAUs when it has fewer console sales and thus fewer users to play its first-party games overall? According to Ampere Analysis, it's because of Minecraft, which is available on PlayStation and many other platforms.
"In pure volume terms, around 35% of Xbox and PlayStation users playing Microsoft games are on PlayStation," says Harding-Rolls.
So if acquisition goes ahead, that means Activision Blizzard will vanish from the graph, and Microsoft may stand to
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