Newzoo has a new comparison out for the year. Based on the financial years of 2013 and 2014, we can get a sense of which companies are leading the industry. While we talk about Sony, Microsoft, EA and everyone else who has big stands at E3 all the time, there are other players in this game who are raking in billions.
Here is the pretty comparison:
Once we get over the shocker of just how massive Tencent is and just how much it’s growing, we can check out the other companies. Sony had a fantastic year, blowing Microsoft out of the water with revenue. EA is growing nicely thanks to titles like Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Sims 4. Meanwhile Activision Blizzard took a slight knock, but not enough to bring them down significantly.
I’m sort of blown away by the growth Apple and Google have had. They already featured on this listing last year, but they are now bigger than King, Nintendo and Ubisoft. I suppose we need to feature more about iOS and Android games seeing as that’s what people care about as shown by their spending. Nintendo fell slightly while Ubisoft had a slight uptick in revenue. Still, just remember that these numbers are in billions of dollars – even that small entry on the graph is a ridiculous amount of money.
I’m not surprised by the Sony vs Microsoft part, but that Tencent, Apple and Google… What is this topsy-turvy world of gaming revenue? I wonder how things will shift over time as more people adopt the PS4 and/or Xbox One and that revenue needs to come from software rather than hardware.
Last Updated: April 21, 2015
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
April 21, 2015 at 19:11
The Freemium model hard at work.
Skyblue
April 21, 2015 at 22:12
It is very interesting. How do they make that much money from one game which is free-to-play? I really am too lazy to do the research so any answer is the one I’ll argue at a LAN this weekend :-p
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
April 21, 2015 at 23:08
One game? Open up either the apple store or the google play store and the top 5 downloads should be freemium games. I mean just look at Candy crush. They work on the exact same way as steam does. They take a percentage of the revenue of any sale.
Skyblue
April 21, 2015 at 23:45
I know that already. I was wondering specifically about Tencent as a sub-holding owns League of Legends and the article seems to imply that that’s where the revenue stream is coming from. I really was just too lazy to investigate what else they own. I find it extremely difficult to believe a company can outperform $ony or M$ when competing on the gaming front with a freemium model.
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
April 22, 2015 at 05:34
No you are not! I love them also (except Sony when it comes to movies (GIVE IT ALL BACK TO MARVEL!!)).
I am going to guess here that the reason Tencent did better was because these stats were gaming exclusive. I would be more interested to see the stat breakdown in terms of Hardware/Software sales as well as money from alternative income sources (aka How much does Tencent make off their international tournaments etc.)
Ottokie
April 21, 2015 at 21:51
So I just went on a “Tencent” research google marathon…these guys are HUGE!
Hammersteyn
April 22, 2015 at 07:40
So is China
Stosta
April 22, 2015 at 07:51
And apparantly 34% of it is owned by a South African company! How do I not know about this?
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
April 22, 2015 at 08:46
SA is owned by China. 😛
Stosta
April 22, 2015 at 16:17
You can have our country in return for a third of Tencent? At this point the Chinese might be regretting that deal!
Kromas,powered by windows 10.
April 22, 2015 at 16:21
Anyone who deals with South Africa at any level is currently regretting it I am sad to say.
Hammersteyn
April 22, 2015 at 07:40
But the other man said Sony is closing down???
Jonah Cash
April 22, 2015 at 15:08
That guy… Samsungstation inbound bud!!
Hammersteyn
April 22, 2015 at 15:31
hehe