Gaming News - Page 370

Activision just reported its best Q3 in the last 10 years, but its critical holiday quarter may not shatter any records.

Activision-Blizzard shares are down by 14% despite its explosive Q3 period where it reported 10-year highs for revenue, operating income, and net income. The culprit involves the company's ongoing lawsuits and investigations regarding sexual harassment and its weaker Q4 forecast.

The company expects to make $2.02 billion in Q4 2021 on the backs of Call of Duty: Vanguard and a mighty deferral. That's 16% lower than last year's $2,4 billion generated from higher-than-expected sales and monetization during COVID-19 lockdowns and the release of both Black Ops Cold War and the World of Warcraft Shadowlands expansion in Q4'20.

Like Ubisoft, EA is also embracing NFTs and play-to-earn as the future of the games industry.

EA CEO Andrew Wilson mentioned NFTs three times during EA's recent Q2 earnings call. Wilson is very optimistic about NFTs and the possibility in adding a new level of collectibles in games like FIFA, Madden, and NHL, possibly as a new monetization opportunity with its billion-dollar Ultimate Team service.

Here's everything Wilson said about NFTs courtesy of a recent transcript:

Battlefield Portal from the start has sounded like something exciting that would be delivered alongside Battlefield 2042, but now that EA DICE has detailed a little more about it... maybe Battlefield Portal will outshine Battlefield 2042.

In a new post on its website, EA details Battlefield Portal by introducing it as their "love letter to Battlefield fans that allows you to define the experience you'll have in Battlefield 2042. Alongside classic content from Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 1942, you're able to create new ways to play, whether that's recreating classic experiences on reimagined maps, or combining the world of 2042 with our past".

Battlefield Portal's new trailer gives us a next-gen glimpse of classic maps like Battle of the Bulge, El Alamein, Arica Harbor, Valparaiso, Noshahr Canals, and Caspian Border -- and at launch, you'll be able to enjoy any of these classics with the weapons, gadgets, and classes that you love. But in the future... well, Battlefield Portal is going to be oh-so-much more.

343i is injecting a ton of old-school nostalgia into Master Chief Collection to celebrate 20 years of Halo and Xbox.

Today 343i announced its big plans for 20 years of Halo, which actually takes us all the way back to Macworld 1999 with the first old-school Master Chief skin. The developers are rolling out a bunch of new content skins that chronicle two decades of evolved combat.

First up we have the Orion skin, which was the first armor featured in the Macworld presentation back in 1999. Chief looked a lot different here and it's awesome we can actually use this skin...but only in Halo 2 multiplayer. Other skins include hilarious additions like an OG Xbox "The Beast" that can be attached to your back, or the oversized Duke controller for shoulder pauldrons (I still contend this is the best Xbox controller ever made).

Take-Two Interactive expects to release 62 games in the next 3 years. Hangar 13's new game, Volt, won't be one of them.

Hangar 13's new game Volt has been cancelled after four years of troubled development, sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier. The game started development in 2017 and would've been an online-driven superhero game with sci-fi elements, but was canned due to numerous reboot failures, issues with game engine tech, and communication problems due to COVID-19 disruptions. Volt was part of 2K Games' pre-E3 2021 leak.

Interestingly enough it appears Volt's cancellation isn't being reflected in Take-Two's latest roadmap, however the game represents the $53 million write-off the company took in its financial report.

Red Dead Redemption 2 reaches a new sales milestone of nearly 40 million copies sold to date.

Today Take-Two Interactive confirmed that Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold 39 million units worldwide across digital and physical channels on consoles and PC.

The sequel now makes up 63% of total Red Dead franchise revenues with the original Red Dead Redemption making up 37% (23 million copies). This mix could skew as reports say a RDR1 remaster is currently in development at Rockstar.

Battlefield will remain a premium experience on consoles and PC for multiple years, EA today confirmed.

EA says that free-to-play makes sense for Battlefield, but the company currently has no plans to roll out a F2P Warzone-like experience for the franchise any time soon. The Battlefield mobile game will come first, and then possibly F2P later on.

During EA's Q2'22 earnings call, company CEO Andrew Wilson confirmed that a F2P Battlefield component isn't a core focus right now. The new $69.99 Battlefield 2042 premium release is the core framework for the entire future of the franchise with its massive 128-player multiplayer chaos. In short, Battlefield 2042 is the reboot for the IPs premium presence, and the new free-to-play mobile game will address the smartphone market. After that, a F2P Warzone-like competitor could happen...but not for a while.

Grand Theft Auto V is still a sales monster seven years after its release.

GTA V has now sold-in (shipped) a combined 155 million units physically and digitally, Take-Two Interactive today announced. The numbers span two generations of consoles and will expand even more once the GTA V E&E remaster launches on Gen 9 systems. This represents a +5 million increase over the figures reported in Q1'22, and this quarter is the fourth quarter in a row the game has tacked on 5 million units sales.

To date, Grand Theft Auto V has helped generate over $6.4 billion in franchise earnings. The full game and the heavily-monetized GTA Online have significantly contributed to Take-Two's quarterly earnings since launch and continually drive up recurrent consumer spending (in-game microtransaction purchases), digital revenues and sales, and overall net revenue impact through game sales.

Amid four separate lawsuits and investigations, heavy media scrutiny, accusations of sexual misconduct and harassment, and multiple high-profile executives and team leaders leaving, Activision has reported a record Q3 that breaks 10-year highs.

Activision-Blizzard just enjoyed an explosive Q3 (they aren't, however, enjoying the explosive controversy stemming from workplace misconduct). The company's net revenues, operating profit, and net income all set record highs for a Q3 period. In short, this recent quarter was Activision's best Q3 in the last 10 years.

The billion-dollar games-maker has generated a whopping $2.070 billion in net revenues driven by Warzone, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, and huge sales from Diablo II Resurrected, which turned out to deliver the best first-week sales of any remaster in Activision-Blizzard's history. Q3 2021 also was the 5th highest quarterly period for net revenues in the last 10 years. Predictably, Activision-Blizzard made 90% of its revenues from digital.

Activision today confirmed that its core mobile development teams are all collaborating on a new Call of Duty project.

Following the massive success of Call of Duty Mobile, Activision is further expanding the franchise into the huge market. Company president and chief operating officer Daniel Alegre confirmed that all of the Activision-branded mobile teams are coming together to work on an unannounced project in the Call of Duty universe.

"We recently acquired Digital Legends in Barcelona. They join our mobile development roster which now includes our new internal team, Solid State, as well as the mobile teams at Beenox and Shanghai, who are all coming together on an unannounced project in the Call of Duty universe that's very exciting," Alegre said.