Fortnite’s cash cow is PlayStation, not iOS, court documents reveal

Earlier this month, gamers learned that the iOS version of Fortnite was a huge revenue driver for Epic Games — the game earned more than $700 million from iOS customers over the two years before it was pulled by Apple, according to court documents (PDF) released ahead of Epic’s trial against the iPhone maker. But even though iOS Fortnite players brought in a staggering amount of money for Epic, iOS isn’t the biggest platform in terms of revenue for the game — apparently, it might even be among the smallest.

Court documents reveal that PlayStation 4 generated 46.8 percent of Fortnite’s total revenues from March 2018 through July 2020, while Xbox One, the second-highest platform, generated 27.5 percent. iOS ranked fifth, with just 7 percent of total revenue. The remaining 18.7 percent would have been split between Android, Nintendo Switch, and PCs.

[Orchard]

So PS + Xbox is ~75% of their revenue... iOS is only 7% - not a huge surprise.

[Babadook7]

Did iOS beat Android?

[Tacoboto]

I am very surprised that a F2P game generated 1/6th revenue on a platform with hundreds of millions of devices compared to one with "just" 100 million. And 1/4th the revenue of a device with only 50 million units out there.

[Mr Logic]

Fortnite is too actiony to play on a phone competitively. Phones are better suited for slow puzzle games and stuff.

[Locutus_of_borg]

“Phones are better suited for slow puzzle games and stuff.”

Or for just making a call or sending a message.. or am I just too old fashioned ?

[TheColbertinator]

Stop the count

[RazzerRedux]

PS4 46.8%
Xbox One 27.5%
iOS 7%

No wonder the other platforms were so desperate for crossplay with PS4.

[Thundercat77]

Specially Xbox who I remember were begging and attacking Sony for it under the disguise of "we are customer friendly".

[Godmars290]

MS were trying to steer PS4 owners, people intending to buy one, towards Xbox.

[Vegamyster]

This game was the biggest in the world and there was heavy flack for accounts being locked to just PlayStation while purchases were cross platform everywhere else, it wasn’t just one fanbase.

[SullysCigar]

This is the biggest reason multiplayer games are just better on PlayStation.

Greater player count means less time in lobbies. It also likely extends the length of time before the game is stale and no longer played.

[Godmars290]

"The PS4 is popular because games on the PS4 are popular," is flawed logic.

Want to say it likely had more to do with PSN always being F2P for F2P games where MS charged for it until recently, yet few people seem to talk about. Better reason then was probably continuing fallout for plan to implement always online and other nixed XB1 policies, just like backlash from trying to double XBL costs finally got MS to stop charging for access to F2P games on Xbox.

[chiefJohn117]

Name 1 game with long wait times on Xbox and fast times on PS. Don't worry ill wait.
How many PS+ subs are there? Now how many Gold subs. Xbox has a higher sub attachment than PS have. Ps4 sold 100 million yet less than half have a sub to play online. So your statement is factually false and like Godmars said none of it relates to Fortnitw as its a f2p game where MS didn't allow non gold subs to play while Sony did.

[Christopher]

***Xbox has a higher sub attachment than PS have***

That's false.

PS+ has over 40m subscribers. You're confusing the announcement that Xbox has 90m users now (not subscribers, just people logged in and active on their Xbox or PC, but their GWG/GamePass subscribership is somewhere between 20m and 30m. We don't know the exact number who transition to GamePass/GamePass Ultimate. We do know there are ~18m GamePass subscribers from what Microsoft revealed and many of those transitioned from GWG to GamePass over the last 4 years.

[chiefJohn117]

Christopher maybe you don't know what attachment mean. Just for argument sake let's take your number of 30 million subs for Xbox. XO sol what? 50 million? Plus 5 for Series. 55millions consoles with 30 million subs vs 110+ million ps4/5 consoles with 40 million subs.... Xbox has the higher attach rate!!!! I'm not gonna argue whi has more subs I already did that as I'm sure you remember. Now we talking attach rate. And using your Xbox sub number still shows Xbox has the higher attach rate. Showing more than 50% of the install base sub while less than 40% sub for ps. (Using your numbers)

[Highrevz]

matchmaking was never an issue on any console but people are going to want to play with there friends on other platforms, that doesn’t make Sony look any better though so I can see why you put that spin on it.

[RazzerRedux]

"people are going to want to play with there friends"

Most of which were obviously on PS4 so my point stands.

"that doesn’t make Sony look any better though so I can see why you put that spin on it."

That wasn't an attempt to make Sony look good or bad at all. Just a general observation.

[RauLeCreuset]

If only there had been people pointing that out during the cross-play craze, which morphed into the cross-save and cross-buy craze. If only...

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I'll quote this post of mine from 1,036 days ago replying to someone who countered that Sony could be leeching off mobile and PC. Looks like that claim doesn't hold up today.

"'Sony could be leeching off the mobile and pc players but I guess that is just unfathomable to someone like you.'

"It's possible you could have more people jumping from mobile and PC to purchase content on PS4 with the revenue going to Sony. Why would Sony care about that? Their interest is in protecting their business model. It's up to Epic to implement cross-play for their game in a way that respects the agreements they have in place with the various platforms. They could do a one time gift of any content bought on a locked account to a new account, but I never see you raging about that.

"Sony isn't obligated to look out for PC (which isn't even a business entity), just like MS and Ninty don't care about Sony's interests when they push this. It's actually pretty slimy for Xbox to be pushing this while reducing the number of their customers who might crossover to a competitor to play and buy content, by locking F2P behind a paywall. It's like the person with a quarter of the pie demanding to share the pie with someone who has half, while at the same time holding out on sharing a portion of their quarter."

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[RauLeCreuset]

Something else I said when someone tried to argue MS and Nintendo didn't stand to benefit "since they don't get royalties from cross play."

"Say Sony allowed it with Fortnite. I started playing on PS4. Now I can play on my Switch. I play Fortnite on the go on my Switch and decide to buy some add-ons. Who made money on that sale, Sony or Nintendo?"

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[Petebloodyonion]

I love the narrative that other platforms were desperate when it wasn't the other platform that asked but developers like Epic and Psyonix.
And let's not forget that Sony accepted crossplay in the 1rst place because Epic was putting a lot of pressure like they are doing on Apple.
Or are we already forgetting that they used to have a special treatment for crossplay in the beginning?

[RazzerRedux]

"I love the narrative that other platforms were desperate when it wasn't the other platform that asked but developers like Epic and Psyonix.'

lol....bullshit. Phil Spencer was right there a long with a mass of Xbox fans crying about cross play.

"We really want cross-play system between XB1 and PS4"

"Me 2."
Phil Spencer
https://twitter.com/jalmmv/...

[Petebloodyonion]

" lol....bullshit. Phil Spencer was right there a long with a mass of Xbox fans crying about cross play.

"We really want cross-play system between XB1 and PS4"

"Me 2."
Phil Spencer
https://twitter.com/jalmmv/...

WOW, I'm impressed about Phil Spencer's power in the gaming industry.
Just by replying via Twitter to a fan that he would love to see cross-play in regards to Sony locking out Fortnite account he did showed how much Xbox console and Switch console were in dire need of crossplay and pressure Sony into changing the No crossplay policy.
https://mp1st.com/news/sony...

Meanwhile in june 2017
Psyonix Jeremy Dunham " Sony is the only hold out for connecting its PS4 players to folks on other consoles. Dunham said that since Rocket League's launch, at least one person from his team has been in contact with PlayStation "every single day" since."
https://www.engadget.com/20...

And here some Bethesda threats regarding no cross-play "Platforms that don’t allow cross-console play may be cut out of The Elder Scrolls: Legends’ launch later this year."
https://www.gameinformer.co...

Or how about PS4 fans message after Epic put a note to contact Sony for Fortnite lock account
https://www.highsnobiety.co...

Yeah clearly it was Xbox and Switch that was requesting the move and not dev or publishers

[TheHan]

What are you smoking? You know Sony was the only one afraid to cross play cause they felt it would take people away from them. When Xbox and Nintendo has been cool about connecting the greater gaming community. Sony was gonna be left in the dust when everyone else was enjoying playing game together, their lucky Spenser extended his hand out to Sony.

[Petebloodyonion]

@ TheHan
I never question or mention Sony's motives for being hesitant regarding cross-play.
My post was about correcting Razzeredux's claim that it was initially developers like Psyonix (Rocket League) that requested Cross-play so they could prolong the life of their online-based game and not platform like Switch and Xbox who were desperate for Cross-play.
In fact, Sony's change in crossplay came when Epic decided to mention that it was Sony who was locking Fortnite game account on their support page and redirects the problem to Sony's customer service.
https://www.highsnobiety.co...

But you are free to provide articles and link that shows that MS Xbox 1and Switch were desperate for cross-play.

[Thundercat77]

Playstation was killing it. Now we can see why Xbox attacked Sony and begged for crossplay. It was not about "consumer friendly" at all!!!

They wanted a bigger piece of the pie 🥧 and manipulated the media into the Sony hate wagon.

[MadLad]

I haven't played a single round of Fortnite, so I'm genuinely confused.
How does cross play with Playstation make more money for MS?
That's still a giant playerbase had on Xbox, and being most games aren't crossplay, your average Xbox player typically has a friend base who are also just Xbox players, and vice-versa on Playstation.
I, personally, don't see this equating to all that many extra players getting into the game and buying microtransactions, if that's the insinuation.

[Godmars290]

Its a continuation/replay of "Sega does what Ninten-don't."

As much as MS indirectly "insist" being #1 with "Best on Xbox," the fact by this example is not only are they #2 but by a noticeable margin.

MS saying "PS doesn't do crossplay" easily translates to, "buy are system instead, it does crossplay." Simple as that.

[MagUk]

Where does it say there were more PlayStation players playing Fortnight?
All this shows is that PlayStation players who played Fortnight spent more money in game. It also shows us is that in-game purchases can produce big profits and there here to stay.

[RazzerRedux]

Is it really that crazy of an assumption to make that nearly half of the total revenue coming from PS4 is because most of the players are on PS4? No, it really isn't.

"All this shows is that PlayStation players who played Fortnight spent more money in game."

That's just as much of an assumption as anything else since we only have total revenue. And frankly, that is less likely than PS simply having more players in Fortnite. I doubt very seriously that nearly half the total revenue in Fortnite is coming from a platform that doesn't have the most players playing it.

[MagUk]

@ RazzerRedux

So “PlayStation 4 generated 46.8 percent of Fortnite’s total revenues from March 2018 through July 2020” which means people who were playing on PlayStation 4 spent more money than any other platform in that particular time period.
All I was pointing out is that it doesn’t tell you the number of players on any platform.
Also how does this calculate in to why other company’s want cross play? The other company’s don't make money from cross play. Cross play helps games survive longer for example look at On Rush that game would have done a lot better with cross play.

[Edgelordsupreme]

How is having greater flexibility with how and where I can play Multiplayer games with friends bad? How is that not consumer friendly? If I only have to keep Warzone or Apex installed on one machine that’s a win in my books.

Also I just want to point out that just because someone is critical of Sony, it doesn’t mean they were influenced or it’s some kind of hate wagon. You do the same shit in every thread here and it’s really sad, I wish there was some way to show you how to any reasonable person you have zero credibility. If all you’re capable of doing is fawning over Sony, than what is your praise actually worth? What is your criticism of MS or Nintendo worth? It’s worth nothing because you’re incapable of being objective. You’re just an empty headed fanboy.

[TheHan]

@Thundercar77; Lmfao might want to put that crack pipe down their buddy.

[CantThinkOfAUsername]

Wait... Fortnite generated $10 billion in 2 years? No wonder they're comfortably burning money on Epic Games Store.

[Sciurus_vulgaris]

10 billion in revenue in 2 years! Yet, Epic tried to portray themselves as a little indie company when they “campaigned for change (aka more money) “ against Apple.

[galmi]

I personally think the sad part of all this is ps and xbox fanboys fighting over fortnite smh

[Edgelordsupreme]

Right? It’s so unbelievably sad that we’ve been lead to this point.

[Highrevz]

I don’t think there’s ever going to be enough room here for conversations that don’t turn into a fanboy war. Discussions can’t be kept civil and the lies and hate soon spread.

[Silly gameAr]

@galmi

You seem to complain a lot, and you're not very good at hiding your xbox bias.

[shihiro1177]

No surprises really. Probably just shows that users of consoles and pc spend more/invest more on in game purchases as its a higher quality experience overall. In addition these same users probably love games quite a bit more than the more casual gamers on ios/android.

Thinking about it, everyone has a phone, I can imagine a ton of people downloading fortnite on their mobile but actually mainly playing with their mates on their pc or console.

Will be interesting to see where apple/epic lawsuit goes, especially as Microsoft have dropped their take to 12% in ms store.

[AnotherGamer]

That actually make sense.