Gaming - Page 324

Microsoft says that PlayStation boss Jim Ryan is travelling all across the globe and speaking out against the Activision merger while Microsoft attempts to gather evidence to defend FTC claims.

Microsoft wants to buy Activision-Blizzard for $68.7 billion, but the tech titan is facing severe scrutiny from key worldwide regulators. The CMA has found the deal could potentially be anti-competitive, the European Commission is taking the acquisition to a Phase II investigation, and the FTC has sued to block the merger and is bringing the deal before its internal administrative court.

Beset on all sides, Microsoft must now create a bulletproof, ironclad case that proves the merger will not adversely affect consumers and market competition. In order to do that properly, Microsoft requires information from competitors like Sony that will be used to reinforce its case. Data like active users, revenues, and game sales are integral to the case, and Microsoft is requesting quite a bit of info from Sony.

This year's new Call of Duty game will be a full mainline title with a campaign and multiplayer, sources have told Insider Gaming.

Call of Duty 2023 will be a full premium game after all. Reports indicate that Activision has shifted its plans and will now release a full Call of Duty title on November 10, 2023. The publisher was originally prepared to delay the game and break the series' annual cadence, but this plan had shifted towards launching a live service component that expanded and extended Call of Duty Modern Warfare II throughout 2023. Now the strategy has coalesced into a full standalone game.

Not much is known about the next Call of Duty. Sources tell Insider Gaming that the project will be "heavily connected to the Modern Warfare series," however the name hasn't been verified. It's unclear if the game will be called Modern Warfare 3 or not.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivers more comments on the proposed merger with Activision and rightly asserts that the deal would make Xbox much more competitive in the games market.

In a recent interview with CNBC, Satya Nadella shares his views on the Microsoft-Activision merger and how the acquisition could ultimately spark a more pronounced market presence in regions where Xbox is notably outpaced by competitors like Sony and Nintendo.

"I think this combination will only bring more competitiveness in the gaming industry," Nadella said in the interview.

The United Kingdom may represent only a small portion of the video games market in terms of revenue generated in 2022, new figures from the UK's Competition and Markets Authority have indicated.

Yesterday UK regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a series of highly-detailed reports on the video games industry as it pertains to the Microsoft-Activision merger. Nestled in a consumer-facing press release is an interesting figure that gives us an idea of where the United Kingdom sits in the global video games market.

According to the CMA, consumers in the United Kingdom spent about about 5 billion GBP on video games throughout 2022. Quick and crude conversions based on recent rates shows that the UK could have generated about $6 billion USD from gaming in 2022. Newzoo, an analyst firm that is often cited in official regulatory documents, notes that the worldwide games market made about $184 billion last year. If these numbers are accurate, this could mean the UK represents about 3.3% of gaming revenues made in 2022.

UPDATE: Sony says it is currently in contact with Microsoft: "We are in contact with Microsoft and have no further comment regarding our private negotiations," a Sony rep told the FT.

Sony has reportedly dropped all communication with Microsoft and Activision in regards to the hotly contested merger.

Sony is trying to "sabotage" the Microsoft-Activision merger, claims Activision CEO Bobby Kotick. Sony has been staunchly against the $68.7 billion merger from the get-go, arguing that Microsoft could use Call of Duty and billion-dollar Blizzard franchises as weapons against its competitors.

Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick comments on the ongoing regulatory scrutiny surrounding the $68.7 billion Microsoft-Activision merger, saying that UK regulators may be following the FTC's alleged ideological approach to the merger.

Yesterday UK competition regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published a series of very important documents relating to the Microsoft-Activision merger. The CMA, who is overseeing the approval process for the potential joining of the two billion-dollar gaming giants, has provisionally determined that the merger could harm UK gamers by in turn harming competition in the gaming market.

The CMA has yet to make a finalized decision and is currently inviting the games industry to provide more information and evidence, which legal counsel from Microsoft, Activision, and Sony are very eager to do. The CMA has published their early findings alongside a list of possible remedies based on the provisional findings, and now regulators are open to arguments against their claims. Essentially, the CMA is at the "change my mind" phase.

Nintendo has broken records with the Switch, which has become the third best-selling gaming hardware of all time. But how does the Switch stack up against Nintendo's other hardware, and PlayStation hardware for that matter?

Nintendo recently made history by achieving 122.55 million Switch shipments. As we predicted, the Switch had beaten the PS4 and the Game Boy by the end of 2022. This puts the Switch handheld-console family firmly in third place behind the Nintendo DS (154.02 million) and the PlayStation 2 (155 million). Although the Switch is currently in its seventh year, Nintendo is reportedly raising its hardware production target for the 2023-2024 period.

To really underline this sales achievement, we've combined historical Nintendo and PlayStation shipments in a single chart. The results speak for themselves and give consumers a better look at how specific handhelds and consoles performed during their respective eras.

Nintendo has joined publishers like Sony, EA, and Take-Two in raising the price of new games.

It's official: Nintendo has confirmed that new premium first-party games will cost $69.99, and the cost increase will start with Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Nintendo has opened pre-orders for the game on the eShop with the new price tag and also mentions the new MSRP in a press release:

"In addition to the standard version, which will be available at a suggested retail price of $69.99, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Collector's Edition will release on launch day at a suggested retail price of $129.99," the press release reads.

PlayStation, not Microsoft, dominated the cloud game streaming market throughout 2021, a new report from UK regulators has indicated.

Today the CMA published its massive 277-page document detailing its findings on Microsoft-Activision merger. The report meticulously outlines key financial and market data in the games industry, including earnings, arguments, and information on userbase numbers. According to the report's appendix filing, PlayStation actually had more users streaming games than Xbox in 2021, but Xbox stole the market in 2022.

According to Table 14 in the document, PlayStation's cloud gaming service captured 30-40% of average monthly active users (MAUs) in 2021, whereas Microsoft's xCloud captured 20-30%. NVIDIA's GeForce Now game streaming service likewise captured the same market percentage bracket as xCloud.

Regulators at the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) have outlined preliminary remedies that may be required to get the Microsoft-Activision merger passed in the United Kingdom.

Today the CMA published a very important series of documents relating to the Microsoft-Activision merger. The CMA's Inquiry Group (Martin Coleman, John Thanassoulis, Humphrey Battcock, Ashleye Gunn) released their provisionary findings on the merger. In the 277-page provisional findings document, the Inquiry Group has determined the merger could have Substantial Lessening of Competition (SLC) effects in two markets: Console gaming and cloud streaming.

The Inquiry Group has summarily published a list of possible remedies, or guidelines, that Microsoft may need to follow in order to get the merger approved. The remedies are based on the findings of the Inquiry Group's investigation, which does not fully reflect recent developments such as Microsoft's offer to bring the $32 billion Call of Duty franchise to PlayStation, Nintendo, and PC platforms for a 10-year period. Microsoft's offer was made publicly to quash concerns about Call of Duty platform exclusivity.

Regulators at the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) have published a list of possible remedies that may be required in order to get the Microsoft-Activision merger passed in the United Kingdom.

Today the CMA delivered new updates on the Microsoft-Activision merger process with a series of documents, including some remedies and concessions that could get the deal approved. The 12-page document includes 53 paragraphs of thorough information on the current regulations and lays out some very interesting preliminary options.

It's important to note that these possible behavioral and structural remedies are not finalized. This is essentially a first draft made by the CMA based on the provisionary findings of the previously conducted Phase 2 investigation. These proposed remedies were drafted by the CMA's Inquiry Group (Martin Coleman, John Thanassoulis, Humphrey Battcock, Ashleye Gunn) and do not consider the 10-year Call of Duty licensing deal that Microsoft has offered to Sony, Nintendo, and Valve.

Today the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) published 7 new documents pertaining to the Microsoft-Activision merger, including findings from an important provisionary investigation.

Independent investigators have determined that the Microsoft-Activision merger could result in a significant lessening of competition, a concept that regulators refer to as SLC. Regulators from the United Kingdom's CMA hired a group of investigators to collect and examine millions of documents from games industry players, including Microsoft, Activision, Sony, and other publishers. The CMA had previously published its own provisionary findings in September 2022.

The findings from the CMA's provisionary investigation were published in a substantial 277-page document that we plan to extensively cover. The determination is that, among other things, the merger "could harm UK gamers" and lead to reduced competition in the console and cloud portion of the UK video games market.

Nintendo has released its earnings report for quarter 3 of the current fiscal year, and it reveals that the Nintendo Switch is now the third best-selling console of all time.

Nintendo has recently released its quarterly earnings report, where it details that the Nintendo Switch has now sold over 122 million units, beating Sony's PS4 at 117.2 million units, and the Game Boy at 118.69 million units. Notably, the Nintendo Switch is now battling with the remaining two consoles above it on the best-selling console of all time ladder, the Nintendo DS with 154.02 million unit sales and the PlayStation 2 with 155 million units sales.

So, will the Switch become the best-selling console of all time? Well, it's hard to say, the console is losing says year-over-year, with Nintendo writing in its Q3 earnings report that hardware sales have dropped by 21.3% when comparing the fiscal year 2022 Q1-Q3 (18.95 million units) against the fiscal year 2023 Q1-Q3 (14.91 million units). Nintendo expects to sell no more than 18 million units by the end of March 2023, this fiscal year.

The legal case between Take-Two Interactive, the publisher behind Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto series, and the fans of the series that created reverse-engineered projects of GTA 3 and Vice City is about to settle.

The lawsuits began flying in 2021 when Take-Two filed two copyright infringement strikes for two fan-made projects. The projects received DMCA takedown notices that forced them to be pulled down from public access. The creators of these projects protested the DMCA claims, saying that the materials contained in the fan-made projects weren't protected by copyright claims and were fair use.

Lawyers quickly got involved in the debate between Take-Two and the creators of the reverse-engineered GTA 3 and Vice City, with Take-Two's side alleging the fans distributed "derivative GTA source code", infringed on copyright laws, and demanded that Github remove access to all of the projects.

Earnings report cards for gaming's Big 3 are currently being tallied up but we've already spotted some interesting figures from top players Microsoft and Sony.

Note: The following figures are approximated, converted and rounded.

Both Microsoft and Sony recently announced their Holiday 2022 financials and gave us all the data required to make a full-year earnings analysis. In this article we'll be solely focused on the video game segment revenues and not total company numbers for the tech giants.

Sony has been accused of lying to European Commission regulators in a possible effort to derail approval of the Microsoft-Activision merger.

Reports indicate that Sony may be spreading disingenuous information to European regulators in an attempt to thwart approval of Microsoft's $68.7 billion buyout of Activision Blizzard King. Like the FTC and the CMA, the European Commission has been critical of the merger and has publicly stated concerns about reduced competition.

Now Microsoft's communication lead Frank Shaw says that Sony representatives are misleading regulators with false information regarding Call of Duty content. Microsoft has publicly announced a 10-year offer to continue bringing Call of Duty to PlayStation and PC with 100% content parity, and Microsoft even extended the deal to include Nintendo.

Sony has taken drastic measures to ensure it does not miss out on more PlayStation 5 console sales.

2020 was a terrible time for a console launch. The entire global supply chain was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic and electronics production was affected. Lockdowns had also forced consumers to change their habits. Everyone was buying games, and practically everyone wanted a new PlayStation 5 console. The demand was incredibly high but Sony simply didn't have enough PS5 consoles to meet the demand.

Now all of that has changed. Throughout 2022, Sony aggressively invested in PlayStation 5 console production and shipping logistics. Sony rolled out a new console revision that used TSMC's 6nm chip production method to yield more silicon, which would lead to more hardware units. The new PS5 models also shaved off weight to reduce Sony's worldwide shipping costs.

Sony has shipped more than 585 million handhelds and consoles across the PlayStation ecosystem.

Nintendo has sold more video games systems than anyone else with over 800 million units shipped, but Sony is firmly in second place. The latest console shipment numbers from Sony's holiday 2022 period earnings report shows that PlayStation 5 sales are finally starting to rise due to increased availability. This new wave of shipments shows us where PlayStation currently is and the potential of its overall hardware growth.

Sony shipped 7.1 million PlayStation 5 consoles in Holiday 2022, bringing total PS5 shipments to 32.1 million while also elevating total platform unit shipments. According to numbers provided by Sony and compiled by us, the PlayStation brand has shipped 585.6 million consoles and handhelds across the lifetime of each system. The data ranges from the PS1 to the PS5 and also includes PS Vita and PSP shipments.

New Dragon Age leaks may have spoiled the events that take place during opening sequence of the game.

New info, gameplay footage, and screenshots were recently leaked from an alpha build of Dragon Age Dreadwolf, the next big game in BioWare's fantasy series. The leaks were apparently captured from a playtest from an earlier version of Dreadwolf and include important story beats that could set the overall tone of the game.

The leaks show an invasion of Weisshaupt Fortress, the mythical home of the legendary heroic protectors known as Grey Wardens. Players actually take on the role of a Grey Warden during the sequence. It's unknown of players are taking control in media res or not, but it could be the case. Dragon Age Inquisition threw players into the fray in a similar fashion.

BioWare's new Dragon Age game may carry forward one of Mass Effect Andromeda worst gameplay decisions.

Tons of info for BioWare's latest Dragon Age Dreadwolf game has leaked out from an alpha version of the game, giving players an idea of what to expect from Dragon Age 4. While most of the leaked details describe an intriguing hack-and-slash fantasy epic with drastically improved visuals, there's one major red flag that could spoil the entire thing.

Playtest sources have told Insider Gaming that Dragon Age Dreadwolf does not allow players to control party members. This sentiment has also been echoed by other leakers. This was a big problem in Mass Effect Andromeda and was the second-largest issue I had with the game.