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In a wild turn of events, Xbox became the top publisher on the PlayStation Store in Q1 2025. This mainly accounts for all pre-orders and pre-installs of games, no doubt helped by titles like Indiana Jones and The Great Circle, Forza Horizon 5 and DOOM: The Dark Ages – the latter expected to launch on 15 May.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, an earnings call on Wednesday for Microsoft’s financial results for Q3 FY25 (January to March 2025) revealed that it was the top publisher on the PlayStation Store for pre-orders and pre-installs. The company added that gaming revenue grew by 5% compared to the same period in the previous year while the “growth of Xbox Game Pass, Call of Duty and Minecraft” contributed to an 8% increase in Xbox content and services revenue.
CEO Satya Nadella explained:
“We continue to transform the business and focus on margin expansion, as we bring our games to over 500 million monthly active users across devices. We ended the quarter as the top publisher by pre-orders and pre-installs on both Xbox and the PlayStation Store. PC Game Pass revenue increased over 45% year-over-year. With Xbox Play Anywhere, players now can access more than 1,000 games they can play across console and PC. And just last week we brought cloud gaming to LG TVs. Cloud gaming set a new record, surpassing 150 million hours played for the first time this quarter.”
In related news, Microsoft recently announced that it would be raising the prices of its hardware, accessories and games. Xbox Series X and S consoles will see increases of $100 and $80 in the US respectively, while certain games will also be pushed up to $80 by the end of the year.
Sony continues to lead console sales this generation by a wide margin as interest in purchasing Xbox consoles has dropped. Nadella revealed that Xbox hardware revenue declined 6% year-on-year, further highlighting the company’s shift away from hardware and more towards its subscription services and making its games multiplatform.
Editor-in-Chief of Nexus Hub, writer at GLITCHED. Former writer at The Gaming Report and All Otaku Online. RPG addict that has wonderful nightmares of Bloodborne 2.
