Microsoft has seen a record month for player activity across PlayStation, Xbox and Steam. The Minecraft movie and its associated content updates drove peak user activity, whilst the surprise release of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered similarly bolstered Microsoft’s share of gamer time and attention. What’s more, the arrival of Season 3 in Warzone, alongside the reintroduction of the Verdansk map, placed Call of Duty HQ* firmly among the biggest month-on-month MAU gainers in April.

Minecraft players on console surge by 4.5m on movie launch

During April, Minecraft peaked across multiple user metrics on PlayStation and Xbox. Monthly active users (MAUs) neared 20m – with the previous peak being just 17.5m – whilst daily active users (DAUs) also reached new heights of 3.9m on April 13^th. This spike in user engagement built gradually in the lead-up to the Minecraft movie release, and was sustained for a number of weeks. In fact, the 14 highest-recorded DAU levels on console all occurred in April 2025.

Churn in Minecraft also reached its lowest levels in Ampere’s tracking period. Here, churn is defined as the share of MAUs that stopped playing a game in a given month, and it sat at just 37.6% in March, which is 10% below its 6-month average. Numerous marketing strategies were employed to ensure Minecraft the game directly benefitted from the hype surrounding the movie. Free, movie-related downloadable content (DLC) was introduced, and select in-game items could be claimed by watching live-streams or purchasing movie tickets from specific sources. 

Players redirect gaming hours away from Fortnite, Roblox

Many Minecraft players seen in April were not actively playing the game in March, and this shift had a notable impact on hours spent in many top live service games. Fortnite users who began also playing Minecraft in April saw their time spent in Fortnite subsequently decrease by an average of 20% on Xbox and 21% on PlayStation, month-on-month. Fortnite was among the worst-affected titles, but Grand Theft Auto V/Online on Xbox was the hardest-hit, seeing average gaming hours fall by 29% as players flocked to Minecraft.

Call of Duty HQ* was one of the only titles to see an increase in play time among players who also played Minecraft during the month. This suggests that it is possible to offset the impact of a significant event or update in/around a competing title. In fact, Call of Duty HQ* gained as many console MAUs in April as Minecraft did – around 4.5m – and this was largely due to the arrival of Season 3 and the return of Verdansk, the original big map from five years ago, alongside a huge launch event. 

Oblivion Remastered renews interest in Elder Scrolls franchise

The shadow drop of Oblivion did not only attract almost 8m players across PlayStation, Xbox and Steam during April, it also likely contributed to a renewed interest in other Elder Scrolls titles. For instance, the Skyrim player-base grew by 12%, and MAUs of Elder Scrolls Online by almost 30%.

Combined, these successes have bolstered Microsoft’s publisher share of MAUs across console platforms. When excluding Activision Blizzard titles, Microsoft now sits in third place, behind EA and Epic Games, but ahead of Take-Two. However, when adding in Activision Blizzard titles, Microsoft would own an almost 17% share of users and sit far ahead of EA in second place at just over 12% share. Recent events have also enabled Microsoft to become the second-biggest publisher on Steam, by active user share.

*Call of Duty HQ is the home for Modern Warfare III, Modern Warfare II, Warzone & Black Ops 6