It’s insane to think that Minecraft has essentially been one of the most dominant and influential titles for more than 10 plus years. Mojang’s open-world juggernaut set the world on fire back in the early 2010s, and it’s still one of Microsoft’s most profitable IPs in their entire catalog. In fact, it was recently revealed during the FTC Activision Blizzard hearings that it’s the company’s biggest revenue force by mile. However, during these very same hearings, Tim Stuart, the Chief Financial Officer of Xbox’s gaming division, revealed that Minecraft actually makes the most revenue on not the Xbox, and not the PlayStation, but instead the Nintendo Switch.
According to Stuart, Xbox is actually the smallest in terms of profit for the title and claims that PlayStation obtains more with the Switch topping all three. When asked about the overall revenue for the Xbox, Stuart claims that it was “the smallest” while saying that the PlayStation was “roughly twice as big.” When inquired about the Switch, Stuart stated that it was “twice as big as PlayStation. four times as big as Xbox.” That’s quite a bold statement, especially coming from a high-ranking official within the Xbox network. This is even more baffling due to the fact that Microsoft acquired the entire franchise and all of its assets for a whopping $2.5 billion back in 2014, one of the largest transactions for a single studio with a single IP at the time.
As for the popularity of the title on the Switch, it’s not all that surprising considering that the console is a hybrid/portable system that can be taken anywhere and played at almost any given moment. As of March 2023, the title has sold 125 million units on the Switch, so it’s safe to say that it’s a definite winner on Nintendo’s flagship console. It also has exclusive content that contains Nintendo characters such as Mario, Luigi, and Peach for players to use in their worlds, something that the other platforms cannot claims for themselves. Then again, there’s always the PC modders.