New court documents revealed Fortnite’s revenue split between different platforms. It looks like PlayStation 4 (not iOS) has been the main source of revenue for Epic Games’ battle royale.
The Verge shared the news on April 28, citing court documents released ahead of Epic Games’ trial against Apple. It shows that Fortnite generated over $700 million on iOS. However, it was only 7% of the game’s total earnings among all platforms.
PlayStation 4 accounted for 46.8% of Fortnite’s total revenue from March 2018 through July 2020. Xbox One is the second-highest platform (27.5%), with Android, PC, and Nintendo Switch accounting for the remaining 18.7%.
The drastic difference is also seen in projected 2020 revenues. According to a deposition of David Nikdel, who works on the backend services for Fortnite, PS4 had almost 40% of total projected revenue, Xbox had 24%, and iOS had only 5.8%.
Last year, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney also claimed that iOS accounted for only 10% of the game’s total average daily players (from its launch to when it was pulled from the App Store). These numbers show why the company decided to go against Apple. Fortnite makes the most money on consoles, so Epic Games has to put up with the stores’ 30% revenue cut. On the other hand, losing iOS users to fight against Apple’s revenue share of the same size is not costing the company a lot of Fortnite’s earnings.