Genshin Impact developer miHoYo generated more profit in 2022 than Activision Blizzard, EA, and Embracer

Unchained

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ccording to state-owned newspaper Guangming Daily (the article was first spotted on Reddit), miHoYo reached 27.34 billion yuan ($3.83 billion) in revenue last year. Its net income (profit) was 16.145 billion yuan ($2.26 billion).

Here is how these figures compare with the financial results of some major Western game publishers and developers (revenues and profits are taken from their latest annual reports):

  • Activision Blizzard (FY22 ended December 31, 2022) — net revenue of $7.52 billion / net income of $1.51 billion;
  • Electronic Arts (FY23 ended March 31, 2023) — net revenue of $7.42 billion / net income of $802 million;
  • Embracer Group (FY22/23 ended March 31, 2023) — net sales of $3.52 billion / net profit of $417 million;
  • Take-Two (FY23 ended March 31, 2023) — net revenue of $5.35 billion / net loss of $1.12 billion;
  • Ubisoft (FY22-23 ended March 31, 2023) — revenue of $1.95 billion / net loss of $532.2 million.

Of course, miHoYo is still behind Chinese tech giants like Tencent or NetEase, but those companies run huge businesses that go beyond video games and operate way more products. For example, Tencent’s gaming division reached 123.9 billion yuan ($17.3 billion) in revenue last year, and NetEase generated 74.5 billion yuan ($10.8 billion) from video games and related services in FY22.

The key to miHoYo’s success is Genshin Impact, a global hit game that has already surpassed $4 billion in lifetime revenue on mobile alone. On top of that, the company recently launched its new title, Honkai: Star Rail, which generated over $130 million on iOS and Android in its first month.
 

BlueLyria

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Of course they did, Have you guys seen how much people spend in Genshin rolls and merch?

Btw I'm also part of people, Star Rail's monthly pass and Battle pass is just too much of good value
 
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Ludwig

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WAIT A SECOND.

How did Take Two have a net loss 2022?
It was due to the acquisitions of Zynga. Take two took over their operations which resulted in net loss of 1.1 billion dollar and part of it could be development of GTA 6.
 
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FatKaz

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What's crazy is there is still room for others in that market for that type of GAAS game. It's not saturated yet.

Sony you want your GAAS money generator? Well there you have it.
 

historia

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Sony punching themselves for not invest them back in 2018. Their other series Honkai already make bank back then.

Apparently the owners don't want to sell it outright though.
 

Ludwig

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What's crazy is there is still room for others in that market for that type of GAAS game. It's not saturated yet.

Sony you want your GAAS money generator? Well there you have it.
You are right. It is best to buy a live service studio than to create one. Plus they also seem like passionate developers.
 

reziel

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Of course they did, Have you guys seen how much people spend in Genshin rolls and merch?

Btw I'm also part of people, Star Rail's monthly pass and Battle pass is just too much of good value
Ahh a fellow Genshin-neer. Sony should definitely start investing in that company if they can. Especially since Star Rail is coming to Playstation later this year. This is something that will definitely pay off in the long run.
 
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Vertigo

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Similarly to how Sony bet on Fortnite it’s betting on Chinese devs.

Absolutely terrified about China and Korean game developers taking over in short timing but that’s not the point…

Sony is pursuing more partnerships with Chinese devs. It’s wise to be proactive but at the end of the day I would never want them to invest into the CCP with a purchase.
 

KnittedKnight

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Similarly to how Sony bet on Fortnite it’s betting on Chinese devs.

Absolutely terrified about China and Korean game developers taking over in short timing but that’s not the point…

Sony is pursuing more partnerships with Chinese devs. It’s wise to be proactive but at the end of the day I would never want them to invest into the CCP with a purchase.
I think you got the problem backwards - the bold. If you think about it more and think strategically you'll understand.
 
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sugarbetik

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It made more than PlayStation division FY2022
operating profits - $1.85bn
Net profits - $??

Nintendo FY2022
Operating profits - $3.65bn
Net profits - $3.31bn
 

nongkris

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And this is why Sony is chasing GaaS.
Genshin is still a single player story based gatcha, while the type of live service games service are developing are pvp shooters. Completely different audiences and one is much harder to take off than the other. Crazy cuz all sony has to do is make a fate grand order genshin clone and they could have themselves another successful gatcha game

Also I wonder what is take two's current profit, especially now that they have zynga. they should be on activision's level
 
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Yurinka

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It made more than PlayStation division FY2022
operating profits - $1.85bn
Net profits - $??

Nintendo FY2022
Operating profits - $3.65bn
Net profits - $3.31bn
Nintendo smacks playstation around when it comes to profits. No wonder they don't put their games on PC. Whoever is the CEO over there actually knows what they are doing
Sony did acquire Bungie and others, released PSVR2 and is developing around 40 AAA games. Had huge costs, so their profits were down.

But if you look at their revenue you'll see that Sony's revenue ($26.9 B) is bigger than Nintendo ($14 B), MiHoyo ($3.83 B) and this year even bigger than Tencent ($17.3 B).

But Sony reinvests pretty much what they do on making more stuff: their gaming R&D budget for this fiscal year is basically all the revenue that division generated the previous fiscal year after taxes and so on.

Genshin is still a single player story based gatcha, while the type of live service games service are developing are pvp shooters.
I didn't know that Gran Turismo and MLB were pvp shooters.

What's crazy is there is still room for others in that market for that type of GAAS game. It's not saturated yet.
Yes, big publishers like Sony know that the biggest and fastest growing markets are mobile and even in consoles the (GaaS) add-ons. And that also console market is estimated to remain flat and that revenue from game sales is decreasing.

This is why publishers like Sony invest on GaaS and mobile.

image.png

image.png

Sony you want your GAAS money generator? Well there you have it.
They saw it coming and signed it. It's a Sony console exclusive, until it gets released on Switch somewhere in the future.

Being Chinese I don't know if they would be able to buy MiHoyo. Also, with this insane profits and profits margin their value should be insane, bigger than publishers like Capcom or Konami but only for a handful games.
 
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anonpuffs

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Sony punching themselves for not invest them back in 2018. Their other series Honkai already make bank back then.

Apparently the owners don't want to sell it outright though.
They do have a marketing agreement with them though. Every new update I get free stuff in the game because of PS+.
 
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nongkris

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They do have a marketing agreement with them though. Every new update I get free stuff in the game because of PS+.
Marketing agreements mean nothing as you can see with Activision. Sony just sucks at making strategic investments.

fairgames and Marathon are the games that they have chosen to develop under their GAAS initiviate (Jim Ryan) and are PVP shooters, let's use our brains for once. Same for Destruction All stars being a pvp derby. Sony is clearly not going the singleplayer story GaaS route.
 
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Zzero

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Looking at stock prices, Take 2 lost half its value in the past three years, but then regained most of it. Seemingly for no reason. Almost as if the market is bullshit...
 

anonpuffs

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Sony did acquire Bungie and others, released PSVR2 and is developing around 40 AAA games. Had huge costs, so their profits were down.

But if you look at their revenue you'll see that Sony's revenue ($26.9 B) is bigger than Nintendo ($14 B), MiHoyo ($3.83 B) and this year even bigger than Tencent ($17.3 B).

But Sony reinvests pretty much what they do on making more stuff: their gaming R&D budget for this fiscal year is basically all the revenue that division generated the previous fiscal year after taxes and so on.


I didn't know that Gran Turismo and MLB were pvp shooters.


Yes, big publishers like Sony know that the biggest and fastest growing markets are mobile and even in consoles the (GaaS) add-ons. And that also console market is estimated to remain flat and that revenue from game sales is decreasing.

This is why publishers like Sony invest on GaaS and mobile.

image.png

image.png


They saw it coming and signed it. It's a Sony console exclusive, until it gets released on Switch somewhere in the future.

Being Chinese I don't know if they would be able to buy MiHoyo. Also, with this insane profits and profits margin their value should be insane, bigger than publishers like Capcom or Konami but only for a handful games.
btw most of Sony's revenue isn't actually theirs, it belongs to the publishers of the games distributed through their digital storefront. That's why their profit margins are lower.
 

Yurinka

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btw most of Sony's revenue isn't actually theirs, it belongs to the publishers of the games distributed through their digital storefront. That's why their profit margins are lower.
No, 100% of the $26.9 Billion revenue made by the SIE division belongs to Sony.

You substract from there taxes, server costs, development and marketing costs of over 3 dozen games under development, the release of PSVR2, R&D on upcoming hardware and services, manufacturing/shipment/marketing costs of their hardware and accesories, the acquisition of companies like Bungie, the payment of many 2nd party and 3rd party exclusives and other types of deals like including games on PS+ etc. and then you get their profit.

The 70% cut of the 3rd party revenue that goes to their publishers isn't included there. In any case, the 3rd party software revenue represents a small portion of the total revenue of Sony's gaming division.
 
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