PC is the most profitable platform for Activision in the first quarter of 2017

Activision Blizzard today announced its first-quarter 2017 results, revealing that the PC was the most profitable platform in this three-month period.

[Razzer]

Wish they would break down those console numbers to platform.

[dirkdady]

Honestly q1 numbers mean nothing for activision it's no where near what they see during q2-q3. These numbers are largely based off overwatch and hearthstone sales as indicated in the article which are trickle in revenue from games that came out sometime ago.

Saying pc gamers spent more on these games ain't saying much

[Derceto]

But..... but...... but............ all those pirates!? How can this be???

[Allsystemgamer]

Yar. Watya tink we spend all dat booty on?!

[SkippyPaccino]

Stop thinking about all those butt pirates... Take a cold shower

[zb1ftw777]

Because you can't pirate WoW and Hearthstone.

Games that you can pirate get fleeced.

[Cobra951]

They're still there, but they can't play Overwatch with the big crowd.

[ARESWARLORD]

Good news for PC

[plmkoh]

Just a sad state of gaming that the premier title is a low rent multiplayer game with superliminal microtransactions.

[Ristul]

You read my mind.

[Lime123]

So consoles don't have wow and Hearthstone which make over 100 million dollars a month, still consoles made more money?

btw I'm pretty sure that most money from consoles came from PS4.

[ONESHOTV2]

Lime123---- dude PC has the highest revenue of all platforms and no the PS4 doesn't make the most money.

[thisismyaccount]

This is not entirely true. Sony alone made more than Valve´s Steam (software sales only) with the PlayStation Division ($5bill. vs $3.6bill).

Steam Fiscal year 2015 $3.5
Steam Fiscal year 2016 $3.6 with twice as many games released in 2016. 14,000games
Sony at 5.4bill. i´m not sure if the final number is actually higher, since it says Q3 results (1,500games)

Sony >>>Q3 FY16 Results<<<
Sales increased 5.2% year-on-year to 617.7 billion yen or $5.4bill. + PS4 hardware sales in >>Q3<< – 9.7M, another 10.3mill. thruout the rest of the year (close to 20mill. in 2016). PlayStation makes about 15 to $20bill. alone each year (hardware, services, software).

Last few years EA, Ubisoft and Activtion reports looked like this :

Console software sales 70 to 85%
PC sales 10 to 20%
others 5 to 10%

Of course it varies, especially with Activ-Blizzard but the "jist" is the same every year. Big 3 Publisher make more dough with console sales than PC ... http://imgur.com/Uny3WWL (ubisoft) noooooow, if we´re talkign about F2P crap from Asia with zero Substance, no story and monotonous repetitive gameplay .. then yeah PC is killing it but only thanks to the Asian Market (Indochina, Indoasia).

Head to steam and check what´s the most played title for the past few years :

- DOTA2
- TF2
- CS
- CS:GO

... all F2P with each 1.5mill. players daily. Faaar on 5th place you can find GTA5 (witcher3 is not even on the list, last time i checked) with only 350k players (daily). The AAA market on the PC is not lucrative unless it´s a GTA or Witcher 3 resp. Diablo 3 (even if the latter one only sold well due them re-re-releasing the game multiple times to fix/add addons+console copies).

Skyrim was a stinker (imho), but the people behind it were uber smart. The re-released the game few times since 2011. One GOTY edition in 2012, then one with more addons in 2013? They sold it at least 3 or 4 times reaching 25mill. sold copies ... which begs the question why is not everyone doing this?! Keep re-re-releasing your game at lower price and you will sell few extra copies. I don´t get the need to recoup all the money on Day 1 ... Skyrim is the perfect example that you can keep selling the game "new"-"Goty& ; ; ;quo t; etc. few times....

Long story short

console AAA >> most lucrative market
PC AAA <<<<< only if the name is big (GTA, Witcher), if ya go PC keep the price stupidly low $15 or make it F2P
Mobile starting to take over pc market, many parts of the world

outdated 2015 world map market http://imgur.com/lc7eLCN

Sony made more money than Valve in the past 2 years (Software alone), add MS revenue and Nintendo once the Switch takes off ... among the 3 they hit easily $10bill. each year if not more.

[addictgamer]

@thisismyaccount
In the third quarter, the most profitable and highest volume quarter btw, Sony sold 50.4 million software units. Steam sold 369.9 million software units in 2016. That figure is ONLY paid titles and that is despite the fact that steam has a return policy unlike sony.

In December 2016 alone 588 new titles released on steam and there are over 14,000 titles in the steam catalogue so it's not very surprising that only the very best games get huge sales numbers.

And final note, there is a BIG difference between revenue and profit. I suspect that steam is much, much cheaper to run than the sony games division.

[PlayableGamez-]

I thought multiplayer games as a service were a failure though?

[MasterCornholio]

Many do though like Battleborn, Evolve, The Crew etc.

Also 99% of GaaS games don't end up with the success of Overwatch either.

While GaaS games can be successful not every game should focus on Microtransactions and subscription services. There are many types of games where that wouldn't work very well.

[Last_Boss]

Never bought a single copy of any of these games.

[Brohan]

Eh

[--bienio--]

Nice PC!

[DeadSilence]

I must be seeing different numbers, Consoles are still ahead and Destiny 2 or WW2 are still to launch.