In a recent financial report from Activision Blizzard, it was revealed that the PC platform outperformed consoles by $27 million at the beginning of 2023. However, this isn’t the first time this has happened for the Call of Duty and Overwatch 2 developer as this has been a pretty consistent occurrence for nearly a year.
According to the financial report, Activision made a total of around $1.3 billion between January 1st, 2023, and March 31st, 2023. PC made a total of $666 million while consoles took home $639 leaving a difference of $27 million continuing the trend of PC outselling its console counterpart throughout the latter half of last year. However, it should be noted that consoles did outsell PC overall throughout the 2022 year.
This is a stark difference from the general dominance the console market had in Activision’s financial portfolio as far back as the early 2000s. Even when Activision purchased the World of Warcraft developer Blizzard in 2008 despite the huge subscription numbers for the game it still didn’t even begin to break the grip that Call of Duty had on console players.
While the PC market has at times beaten the console market in Activision Blizzard’s financial reports it never lasted too long but given the success of the PC market over the last nine months this could mean there is a bigger shift coming to where the company accumulates its profits. Activision attributed the 74% raise in PC revenue to the success of titles like Call of Duty and Overwatch 2. However, there was also continued revenue intake from titles like World of Warcraft: Dragonflight and Diablo Immortal which exist solely on PC.
Blizzard is clearly the leading reason for the company’s growth in the PC market and while Blizzard games only make around half of what Call of Duty makes they still contribute a higher percentage of PC sales to console sales with 72% of their revenue coming from PC and only 8% on console. Call of Duty on the other hand brings in a more diverse platform profit with 59% on console, 26% on PC, and 15% on mobile devices. What will be interesting to see is how Diablo 4‘s launch on June 6th, 2023 will affect Blizzard’s console sales given the game is set to release simultaneously on both console and PC which is a series first. Only time will tell however and Activision Blizzard’s next financial report may reveal more.
