Don’t they basically give it away with game pass? On the other consoles its pure profit but on Xbox its a value add. I’d also assume the demographics of a switch user are more likely to play Minecraft than others.
I feel like that tracks, yeah. Xbox is the least popular of the big three, but Minecraft is a cultural phenomenon.
I was curious if some of this could be attributed to XBox getting MC sooner, and therefore sales trickling on that platform since XBox customers would’ve already bought the game, but the PS version got released a year later, in 2013, and Wii U two years after that, so it seems like it really is just more popular on other platforms.
The majority revenue from Minecraft is not the sale of the game but marketplace content, so Xbox Game Pass shouldn’t have any big impact. I think the real answer is that most that play Minecraft and buy mods / and other marketplace content is kids between 4-11 and they are far more likely to have a switch than an Xbox in my experience as a father of three.
From this trial I think it’s become clear that Microsoft is trying to use this same strategy with Call of Duty as they are with Minecraft. This is a massive acquisition and cutting off revenue by removing the highest grossing platform (PS5) would be a terrible move by Xbox.
Microsoft has a long history of being monopolistic and anti competitive behavior so it’s not surprise a trillion dollar company tries to consolidate further.