Company disclosures from 2025 pointed to different forces shaping gaming: Microsoft reported growth in its gaming business, Valve widened SteamOS support beyond its own handheld, and Electronic Arts estimated that digital sales made up a growing share of its console full-game units. Amazon’s 2025 position and broader startup trends are not established by the available company sources, so this outlook is best read as a set of company-specific signals—not a forecast for the whole industry.
This is a retrospective of what companies reported or announced during 2025, not a prediction made with hindsight about their current position. The figures below cover different businesses and fiscal periods: Microsoft’s fiscal year ended June 30, while EA’s fiscal years ended March 31. They are useful indicators of business mix and platform direction, but they are not directly comparable measures of market growth.
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Microsoft: growth alongside a cross-device strategy
Microsoft’s 2025 annual report describes gaming as spanning PC, console, mobile and cloud. The company says its gaming business depends on active users, content availability, exclusive content, device computation and reliability, and new experiences. That is Microsoft’s own strategic framing, rather than an independent forecast about which channel will win.
The report’s financial results show growth, but Microsoft attributed part of the increase in Xbox content and services to the Activision Blizzard acquisition as well as Xbox Game Pass. That context matters: the reported increase should not be read as purely organic growth or as a promise that the same pace will continue. See Microsoft’s 2025 Annual Report.
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What Microsoft and EA disclosed about different parts of the business
The figures below describe unlike things: Microsoft reported revenue changes for a fiscal year ending June 30; EA estimated the digital share of full-game units sold on specified consoles for fiscal years ending March 31. EA’s estimate is not a measure of the entire games market.
| Company and measure | Reported value | How to read it |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft gaming revenue, fiscal 2025 | Increased $2.0 billion, or 9% — Microsoft, 2025 | Revenue growth for Microsoft’s gaming business; the report identifies acquisition impact among the context for growth. Source |
| Microsoft Xbox content and services revenue, fiscal 2025 | Increased 16% — Microsoft, 2025 | Microsoft attributed growth in part to the Activision Blizzard acquisition and Xbox Game Pass. Source |
| EA estimated digital share of full-game units on specified Xbox and PlayStation consoles, fiscal 2025 | 78% — Electronic Arts, 2025 | EA’s estimate based on unit counts, not a whole-market statistic. Source |
| Same EA measure, fiscal 2024 | 73% — Electronic Arts, 2024 | Same company estimate and console scope; a different fiscal year. Source |
| Same EA measure, fiscal 2023 | 68% — Electronic Arts, 2023 | Same company estimate and console scope; a different fiscal year. Source |
EA’s series offers a company-specific signal about distribution: digital purchases were an increasingly large share of the specified console full-game units EA sold across those reporting years. It does not establish digital sales’ share for other publishers, platforms outside the stated scope, or the industry as a whole.
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Amazon: its 2025 Luna position is not established here
The available official Amazon source is a 2020 earnings release that announced Luna as a cloud gaming service and described its early-access offering. It provides historical context, but it does not establish Luna’s availability, scale, strategy or competitive position in 2025. A comparison of Amazon Luna with Xbox cloud gaming—or a claim about Amazon’s 2025 gaming trajectory—would go beyond that evidence. Amazon’s Q3 2020 earnings release.
Valve: SteamOS reaches another handheld maker
In a January 7, 2025 announcement, Valve said the Lenovo Legion Go S “Powered by SteamOS” was the first officially licensed handheld to ship with SteamOS. Valve also said work on SteamOS for that device would improve compatibility with other handhelds. The announcement supports a platform-expansion story: SteamOS was being extended to another company’s handheld PC, rather than remaining limited to Valve’s own hardware.
Rank #3
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Valve’s SteamOS team described the design goal this way: “We built this operating system to provide a seamless user experience optimized for gaming, while retaining access to the power and flexibility of a PC.” The announcement does not report sales or adoption, so it cannot show how many players would choose a SteamOS handheld. Valve’s SteamOS announcement.
Startups and small studios: one example, not an industry trend
Lunar Software’s July 8, 2025 update said its game ROUTINE remained in active development. The studio said it would not commit to a release window until it was confident and described a core development team of three alongside additional contributors. That is a concrete example of a small team managing expectations around scope and timing; it does not establish typical startup economics, financing conditions, employment trends or closure rates.
Rank #4
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For a reader assessing the business side of game development, the practical takeaway is limited but useful: a small studio’s release date can remain uncertain even when development is active. Lunar’s update gives no basis for estimating how common that situation is. Lunar Software’s ROUTINE update.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What these signals do—and do not—say about the gaming business
- Revenue and distribution are separate lenses. Microsoft’s results concern revenue changes in its gaming segments; EA’s estimate concerns the digital share of certain console unit sales. Neither metric can stand in for the other.
- Access is a strategic dimension. Microsoft’s report describes a business spanning several device types, while Valve’s announcement concerns bringing SteamOS to another handheld PC. Those disclosures show different approaches to where games can be played, not a head-to-head measure of success.
- Company evidence is not a market forecast. These sources do not establish a validated whole-market growth rate for 2025, a quantitative Microsoft-versus-Amazon cloud comparison, or a ranking of startup prospects.
For personal-finance readers, the evidence is most useful as context for understanding how gaming companies describe their revenue sources and distribution choices. It is not enough to infer future returns or to make an investment decision on its own.
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