The same Ubisoft investor presentation [PDF] which produced rankings on the top-ranked console franchises in the last eight years also yields a few interesting numbers on the market share of major publishers. Activision Blizzard leads the way in American and European market share with nearly 20 percent of the take in 2012, making a strong leap from 15.7 percent in the previous year. Activision beat out previous ruling publisher Electronic Arts, which dropped from 19.7 percent in 2011 to 18.4 percent in 2012. THQ also hung on in the top roster, despite financial problems leading to its dissolution at the end of 2012. Also of note is that both Nintendo and Sony experienced a substantial loss in market share versus 2011 (12.4 percent to 10.8 percent and 5.3 percent to 3.5 percent, respectively), with Microsoft only making fractional gains by comparison (4.8 percent to 5 percent). The rankings, as per Ubisoft's other market data, are derived from tracking firms NPD and GfK as well as Nielsen and reflect performance only in US and European markets.

Market shares of major publishers in 2012