Gaming - Page 373

Warner Bros' latest AAA game will not feature microtransactions, possibly signalling a move away from monetization.

Gotham Knights, the new Batman game that doesn't feature Batman at all, will not have microtransactions. WB Montreal recently confirmed the news on Twitter with a simple denial of the popular billion-dollar business model.

On paper this makes sense. Gotham Knights isn't a live game and only features two-player co-op. That being said, WB Games has infused microtransactions in other singleplayer-only games like Shadow of War...although the publisher did remove mTX after launch. Other games like Mortal Kombat also featured in-game purchases.

Tencent wants to buy more stock in Ubisoft and possibly take over the company, sources have told Reuters.

Billion-dollar Chinese juggernaut Tencent, who has invested in dozens of video game firms over the last few years, has set its sights on Ubisoft. Tencent had originally secured a 5% stake in Ubisoft and helped the Assassin's Creed-maker stave off a hostile takeover from Vivendi in 2018. Now Tencent wants a bigger piece of the shares.

Sources have told Reuters that Tencent is looking to acquire an increased stake in Ubisoft in a bid to become the largest shareholder in the company. Ubisoft's current largest shareholder is a corporation run by the Guillemot family who has a combined 15.418% in Ubisoft shares. As of May 2022, shares were split up among institutions like JP Morgan Chase (10%), Credit Argicole Corporate & Investment Bank (10%), JP Morgan Securities (10%), The Capital Group (5%), and Baillie Bifford & Co (5%).

A Diablo Immortal gamer has claimed to have spent $100,000 on upgrading his character but now is seemingly unable to play with any other players.

JT from the jtisallbusiness YouTube channel posted a video at the end of last month where he claims that he has spent around $100,000 on upgrading his Diablo Immortal character to its absolute maxed-out potential. As you can imagine, JT destroyed any opponents that attempted to fight him and broke several in-game records, according to Techspot.

The gamer's character was so powerful that the matchmaking system is now unable to find him an opponent of a similar level, meaning that JT is unable to clown on opponents with his pay-to-win gear. After contacting Blizzard about this issue more than a month ago, JT received a response from a Blizzard representative on August 2 that informed him they had "approved a fix" and that it would be implemented in the "next coming days". The details of this update weren't revealed.

A simple transcription error has led to substantial inaccuracies in Sony's hardware production forecast.

A user on Seeking Alpha has diligently transcribed Sony's recent Q1'22 earnings call to investors, and for the most part the transcription is accurate. However sometimes there's little mistypes and sometimes these errors can have big consequences. Case in point: According to the transcription, Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki said there was "no change" to ship 80 million PS5s by FY23's end.

This was a simple error. Totoki said 18 million, not 80 million. The latter is simply impossible even without COVID-19 restrictions in place. Sony plans to ship 18 million PS5s through FY23, which is the single largest shipment target in PlayStation console history.

Monster Hunter Rise is Capcom's latest breakout success and underlines the company's emphasis on platform diversification.

Capcom's latest sales charts show some surprising results. Monster Hunter Rise has reached 10.3 million units sold worldwide, officially making it Capcom's #3 best-selling game of all time. This is quite a feat considering Monster Hunter World has been out for little over a year--it was released in March 2021--and that it skipped mainline consoles like the PS4 and Xbox One. Mon Hun Rise is only available on PC and the Nintendo Switch.

Monster Hunter Rise is now the second fastest-selling game of all time. The mighty Monster Hunter World takes both the best-selling and fastest-selling individual game record with a powerful 18.3 million units sold. With these figures, Monster Hunter World makes up 22% of total franchise sales, and Rise makes up about 12% of unit sales.

Capcom's digital game unit sales have reached their highest quarterly peak in the past six years.

Although Capcom's converted earnings dropped 50% since last year the publisher is still doing very well. The Japanese publisher just broke a record on digital game unit sales volume in Q1'22 with 10.4 million games sold. Digital game sales made 89% of total games sold during the quarter. This follows Capcom's comments in 2021 that PC is a "priority platform."

Based on previous comments made by Capcom and data provided in the Q1 reports, we can guess that most of these games were sold during the Steam summer sale on PC.

While consoles typically lead the pack, PC is still very important to publishers like Capcom.

PC is a great platform; it's practically all-digital and it's a great place to rake in cash from older evergreen catalog games. Throw in major discounts during a Steam summer sale event and bam, you typically have a formula for boosted sales.

Apparently that's what happened during Capcom's recent Q1 period. PC made up 50% of unit sales during the quarter. Capcom sold 11.7 million games during Q1'22, so PC games sold roughly 5.85 million.

Capcom has reiterated that it currently has no plans to raise the price of its games.

While major players like Sony, Activision, Take-Two Interactive, and Square Enix raise prices of their games to $69.99, there's been a handful of publishers that have kept their games at the normalized $59.99 MSRP. Companies like Nintendo, Ubisoft, SEGA, and Capcom have yet to raise retail prices of their games for the new console generation.

In fact, Capcom's corporate office tells investors that it will keep the prices of its games the same as ever...at least for now.

Sony asserts that content is the main driver for subscription services, and that Microsoft adding Activision franchises and IPs to Game Pass would be a "tipping point" in favor of the Redmond-based tech giant.

Brazil's competitive protection agency CADE has reached out to major games industry companies like Sony, Nintendo, Ubisoft, WB Games, Epic Games, and many more on the topic of Microsoft's proposed buyout of Activision-Blizzard. The questions center around possible anti-competitive practices and general information about the industry. Sony has delivered a number of interesting responses on the topic.

According to the questionnaire which has been made public on the Administrative Council for Economic Defense's website, Sony legal counsel says that Activision games on Game Pass could be a "tipping point" for content value. While the attorneys don't outright call it anti-competitive, they do make a case that Microsoft's previous acquisitions (like its $7.5 buyout of Bethesda) have significantly built Game Pass subscription value.

Sony makes interesting comments about how games offered on subscription services could potentially harm consumers due to lower game quality.

CADE, Brazil's own version of the FTC that acts as a protection group for the country's economy, recently polled major games industry players about Microsoft's proposed $68.7 billion buyout of Activision-Blizzard. The questionnaire aimed to collect data and insights on the $180 billion video games market.

Sony was among those questioned about Activision-Blizzard deal, and about the games market as a whole. One of Sony's more interesting responses discussed how important Call of Duty is for gaming, and comments on premium games vs subscription-based games. While not explicitly mentioned by Sony, the company's comments seem to compare the quality of buy-to-play first-party PlayStation games with Microsoft's direct-to-Game Pass titles that release day-and-date on the service.

Worldwide regulators are asking competitors like Sony for comments on Microsoft's Activision-Blizzard buyout and how it could affect competitor's positions in the market. Sony had a few choice words to say about Activision's most popular franchise.

Call of Duty is the top shooter series of all time. It's a powerhouse franchise that helps Microsoft and Sony generate combined billions every year (even with the 30% split). We've already calculated that Sony (and Microsoft) would lose hundreds of millions if Call of Duty is kept off of PlayStation platforms should Microsoft's $68.7 billion Activision-Blizzard deal close, but Sony has delivered official comments reiterating how important Call of Duty is for gaming.

In an official response to Brazil's Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE), as found on this webpage and machine translated for this article, Sony legal representation said that Call of Duty is unrivaled in the games industry. Representation indicates that Call of Duty exclusivity could be a paradigm shift for the games market.

PlayStation division operating income has been nearly cut in half due to unfavorable market conditions and increased game development spending.

Sony's recent Fiscal Year Q1'22 results show sharp declines in its billion-dollar gaming segment and highlight the tumultuous market that could inhibit consistent growth. Games & Network Services, which includes the mighty PlayStation brand, saw substantial drops in both total sales revenues when converted from yen to USD based on foreign exchange market rates provided by the company.

According to the data, PlayStation net sales revenues dropped to $4.67 billion in Q1'22, a decline of $890 million or 17% year-over-year.

One of Sony's most important gaming metrics is down by 4 million users as overall sales earnings slip in Q1'22.

PlayStation Monthly Active Users (MAUs) are down to their lowest point in the last 11 quarters. Throughout Q1'22, PlayStation MAUs dropped to 102 million to reflect downward trends in subscriptions, game sales, and overall PlayStation segment earnings.

This drop in MAUs will be weighted more heavily as Sony pivots into live service games and free-to-play titles on the PlayStation Network, however the diversification across PC and mobile will cushion any kinds of drops--at least once PlayStation live games are established on these platforms.

Sony's PlayStation hardware hits a new sales milestone as the PS5 continues its successful run.

Historical PlayStation handhelds and consoles have surpassed 576 million shipments worldwide, Sony's recent financials have confirmed. The data shows lifetime cumulative sales across all PlayStation platforms, including console generations and the PSP and PS Vita handhelds, that tally up to 581.5 million units sold-in to date.

Read Also: PS4 and PS5 game sales reach nearly 2 billion combined

Sony has sold nearly 2 billion video games on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles.

Read Also: PlayStation 5 sales hit 21.7 million, to break 37 million this year

Sony's latest Q1'22 earnings report reveals total cumulative game sales across the PS4 and PS5 generations. According to the data, both systems have sold a combined 1.912 billion game units across digital and physical channels since the PS4's launch in 2013 to present day.

PlayStation 5 worldwide shipments have reached nearly 22 million units, Sony has announced.

Sony's latest Q1'22 earnings report confirms the PlayStation 5 has shipped approximately 21.7 million systems across the globe.

The PS5 is nearly two years old and the figures, which reflect six quarters of shipments, still don't beat the PS4's sales during the comparative period.

The PlayStation 4's lifecycle is ending after 9 years of sales, Sony has indicated.

Sony's latest gaming earnings report revealed a lot of things, including significant drops in operating income and revenues. The corporate document was also the death certificate of the PS4 as Sony has officially stopped reporting sales figures for the console.

Every earnings report from Q3'14 to Q4'21 had a section devoted to PS4 console shipments. The most recent Q1'22 report removed this section and replaced it with PS5 sales, signalling an end to the PS4. The writing was on the wall, though; Sony had only shipped a paltry 1 million PS4s throughout all of last year. PS4 sales have officially topped out at 117.2 million units.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg explains to investors why the company is sinking billions of dollars into the vague and nascent metaverse.

The metaverse is hard to define, but Meta is a big believer in the new platform--it's the entire reason it changed its name. Meta wants to help define the new web3 platform in an effort to control and pioneer a new interactive realm of ads, social media, games, and shopping.

This plan is very, very costly. Meta's Reality Labs division, which is gearing up tech and hardware to power the metaverse, has lost $18 billion since 2020. Meta says that this spending will increase. The rationale is that Meta is trying to build an entirely new cyberspace that melds digital money-making models together, all wrapped in an interactive social media platform. Zuckerberg believes the metaverse will be worth "hundreds of billions of dollars."

Welcome to hell: Diablo Immortal has redefined Blizzard's mobile business by making $100 million in revenues faster than Fortnite did.

Despite a somewhat weak launch, Diablo Immortal has proven to be a staggering success on iOS and Android. Despite controversy over microtransactions, Diablo Immortal has raked in over $100 million in 8 weeks on the global market across iOS and Android.

Data from SensorTower shows Diablo Immortal actually hit this threshold a whole month before Fortnite did on mobiles; it took Diablo Immortal 8 weeks to hit $100 million, and Fortnite hit the threshold after 12 weeks. Gamers from the United States is spending the most on the game, followed closely by South Korea.

Microsoft will use Activision-Blizzard's arsenal of video games, developers, and network infrastructures to power the Xbox metaverse.

The metaverse represents a big opportunity for billion-dollar monetization; imagine a digital interactive world that merges internet browsers, social media, and gaming platforms into one. It's a dream come true for companies like Microsoft, who make billions every year from advertisements, licenses, and video games.

This potential is why Microsoft is investing in the metaverse. Plans aren't concrete yet, but the company has confirmed it will use its $68.7 billion buyout of Activision-Blizzard to fuel its metaverse strategies. Microsoft also raised its R&D spend in gaming and cloud by $3.6 billion throughout Fiscal Year 2022.