Apple reportedly made more money from games in 2019 than Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and...

[midian182]

In a nutshell: We don't think of Apple as a gaming company, seeing as it doesn't actually make its own titles. Yet, Cupertino is estimated to have earned more in 2019 from games than industry giants Nintendo, Microsoft, Sony, and Activision Blizzard combined.

The surprising revelation comes from a Wall Street Journal report examining the App Store's profitability and how much of it comes from games. Using Sensor Tower data, it writes that the store generated $15.9 billion between October 2018 to September 2019. Based on Apple's operating margin calculations revealed during the Epic vs. Apple trial, the company made $12.3 billion in operating profit during that period—a fifth of its overall profit.

The WSJ's own analysis estimates that Apple would have earned $8.5 billion in profit from App Store games. That amount is about $2 billion more than the combined earnings of Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Activision during the same period. The publication based this on public financial records from the companies, along with an estimate on Microsoft.

It's worth noting that Apple, during the Epic trial, claimed the given operating margins were incorrect and didn't account for the many joint costs associated with the App Store, so the WSJ's numbers might be higher than the reality.

Sensor Tower reports that $45 billion was spent on mobile games from the App Store throughout the fiscal 2020 year, around $13.5 billion of which went to Apple—a lot of money, yet still only 5% of the company's overall revenue for the year. The analyst firm estimates App Store spending for the first half of 2021 alone to be $23.4 billion, $30% more than the same period a year earlier.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/91577-apple-reportedly-made-more-money-games-2019-than.html

 

[Dimitriid]

They're outgaming the game companies and they don't even produce games....Or have any of the really good ones at their app store.

If anything this is a testament at the power of gambling mechanics marketed directly at children and how letting a capitalist oligarchy run amok without any restrains was probably not a good idea. But don't think on this too much stay alert for extreme weather warnings because of you know, the other, more immediately deadly consequences of said economic system.

 

[bviktor]

No sh*t, running an App Store has associated costs?!

surprised_pikachu_face.jpg

 

[elementalSG]

It’s why Apple stopped purposely obsoleting iPhones and now support phones from the iPhone 6S to the iPhone 13…when you have more than 1 billion devices on your hardware platform, even 1% means 10+ million devices and a ton of money.

Sony and Microsoft can only dream of having 1 billion+ Playstations and XBoxes to sell games to

 

[DZillaXx]

They're outgaming the game companies and they don't even produce games....Or have any of the really good ones at their app store.

If anything this is a testament at the power of gambling mechanics marketed directly at children and how letting a capitalist oligarchy run amok without any restrains was probably not a good idea. But don't think on this too much stay alert for extreme weather warnings because of you know, the other, more immediately deadly consequences of said economic system.

This is one of the biggest reasons why Apple is a horrible Company.

We've seen or heard the rumors plenty of times.

Apple doesn't care about their users, they are not out to protect people. One of the biggest reasons why they don't even allow apps to even speak of another way to buy good other than via apple payment option.

Apple has always pushed and supported games that take advantage of their user base with gambling type systems. Always loud and proud on display in the app store.


Apple has no plans to slow down the cash flow, or even restrict apps on their abusive behavior. Most of these games have more in common with gambling machines than they do with games on PC and Consoles.

The biggest problem location is America where the idea of protecting people from such acts is quickly shut down either by companies like Apple funding millions of dollars into acts against such action, or by people already so diluted in thought that they'll claim such protection is socialist. Even if they really don't understand what socialist means. These people feel off words and are quick to call anything Liberal. They also tend to be iPhone wielding.

 

[Aceseven]

Meanwhile actual legit games, yknow, complete ones with no gatcha bs or gambling and their devs have to beg and justify why a person has to actually "buy" their games....cause gamers are so damn cheap.

yet will burn hundreds on mobile crap, gaming in all ways straight up sucks right now.

 

[Xelions]

The WSJ's own analysis estimates that Apple would have earned $8.5 billion in profit from App Store games. That amount is about $2 billion more than the combined earnings of Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, and Activision during the same period. The publication based this on public financial records from the companies, along with an estimate on Microsoft.

I'd like to have more time to research this point but in all honesty I'm not sure where I'd get that information. So I'm going to make some assumptions and presume there fairly accurate

The biggest problem I have with that statement - combined earnings - is that the console and game development branch of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are not as sizable as some may think. If we break it down and see how long all 3 companies have been developing consoles; Playstation 1995, NES 1985 and Xbox 2001 respectively. We all know profit margins on consoles are slim at the time of release and aren't exactly spectacular later on either. These companies resort to games contributing to their earnings significantly!

We then look at how large their in-house development studio is, and what other studios they may own - I think you'd find a trend that only within the last few years have those companies started to acquire game development studios more heavily:

*Sorted by Business to see Video Games category
List of mergers and acquisitions by Microsoft
List of acquisitions by Sony

Nintendo Subsidiaries
List of Nintendo subsidiaries

Many games on the apple/google app store also have a very short development time or budget where as most games for consoles or PC have long development times and massive budgets. Costs associated to develop for consoles are fairly significant as opposed to the app store (minus console porting). That RRP price on the app store compliments well to those factors above, but for consoles and PC they don't enjoy anywhere near those profits. And I have to add in, I get a lot more enjoyment from a console or PC game than any mobile I played in my life!

There are many other factors at play here too, target audience(who has access to a smartphone, costs, etc), stigmas associated with gaming, and more that I can't think of at the moment. To sum up what I'm trying to say is that it's better to compare a front to a front more completely. Lets compare the earnings of the entire console industry to Apple's app store! And we know who's on top. The day that Apple wins that contest, it won't be a good day!

 

[nagynorbert97]

I'd like to have more time to research this point but in all honesty I'm not sure where I'd get that information. So I'm going to make some assumptions and presume there fairly accurate

The biggest problem I have with that statement - combined earnings - is that the console and game development branch of Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft are not as sizable as some may think. If we break it down and see how long all 3 companies have been developing consoles; Playstation 1995, NES 1985 and Xbox 2001 respectively. We all know profit margins on consoles are slim at the time of release and aren't exactly spectacular later on either. These companies resort to games contributing to their earnings significantly!

We then look at how large their in-house development studio is, and what other studios they may own - I think you'd find a trend that only within the last few years have those companies started to acquire game development studios more heavily:

*Sorted by Business to see Video Games category
List of mergers and acquisitions by Microsoft
List of acquisitions by Sony

Nintendo Subsidiaries
List of Nintendo subsidiaries

Many games on the apple/google app store also have a very short development time or budget where as most games for consoles or PC have long development times and massive budgets. Costs associated to develop for consoles are fairly significant as opposed to the app store (minus console porting). That RRP price on the app store compliments well to those factors above, but for consoles and PC they don't enjoy anywhere near those profits. And I have to add in, I get a lot more enjoyment from a console or PC game than any mobile I played in my life!

There are many other factors at play here too, target audience(who has access to a smartphone, costs, etc), stigmas associated with gaming, and more that I can't think of at the moment. To sum up what I'm trying to say is that it's better to compare a front to a front more completely. Lets compare the earnings of the entire console industry to Apple's app store! And we know who's on top. The day that Apple wins that contest, it won't be a good day!

I think you completly missed the point. The big console holders have many exclusive titles to sell the platform, but the majority of their revenue comes from the platform holder position and their 30% cut, the same as apple, so their role in only selling games that others make is roughly the same. In this case Apple having more revenue from the gaming industry while prividing actually nothing, just harvesting the profit in soo huge quantities is mind boggleing for me at least.