Gaming - Page 414

Sony's current- and next-gen console duo have sold nearly 2 billion games combined, new figures reveal.

Although console shipments (and sales) are dropping, software is rising exponentially with over $3 billion earned from digital games and add-ons in Q3. Sony also provided updated figures on PS4 and PS5 combined software sales...and the numbers are quite surprising.

According to our findings, the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles have sold 1.817 billion games as of December 31, 2021. This data is based on the 1.181 billion software sales figure Sony provided in Q3'19 added to the sum of FY20's full-year software sales and FY21 Q1-3 data.

Sony's $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie includes a hefty incentive program for the Destiny-maker's workers.

In its recent Q3'21 earnings report, Sony confirmed it plans to spend a sizable portion of its Bungie buyout offer on retention. Sony says it is prepared to pay 1/3rd of its $3.6 billion buyout proposal, or roughly $1.2 billion, on a long-term incentive plan that will reward Bungie employees who stay with the company.

Sony will pay the remainder $2.4 billion for a direct buyout of Bungie's private shares. The bonus is aimed at keeping Bungie's current staff intact after the acquisition.

Sony's latest Q3'21 earnings report delivers updated PS4 and PS5 shipment numbers...and they're not incredibly impressive.

The worldwide semiconductor shortage is taking a big bite out of consumer hardware sales. Sony's video games consoles are being hit particularly hard by the scarcity, leading to constrained supply of its PlayStation 4 and newer PlayStation 5 consoles.

Choked supply lines have dropped overall sales of the PS5, which has not met the PS4's shipments during the same period. The PS5 has now shipped 17.3 million units worldwide in its first 13 months, as compared to the PS4's 20.2 million units sold during the same period (a 2.5 million difference).

Delay season strikes again: Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the new game from Batman Arkham series developer Rocksteady, has been pushed back to 2023.

Warner Bros. Games, a subsidiary of WarnerMedia, has delayed one of its most anticipated games to next year. Sources tell Bloomberg that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been moved from its expected 2022 launch to an undetermined release in 2023.

Just days ago WarnerMedia CEO Justin Kilar said the company would deliver "full slate of highly anticipated games" in 2022, and re-iterated original launch windows for Gotham Knights and the new Harry Potter game Hogwarts Legacy. We noted Suicide Squad's absence, and we also noted that any one of the 2022 games could be delayed.

Sony's once-mighty PlayStation 4 console has petered out considerably as the company delivers the lowest shipment figures for the second quarter running.

Sony just published megaton results for Q3'21, raking in $7.1 billion in revenues (second highest quarter in PlayStation history) and $817 million in operating profit (the best Q3 in history), all driven by strong software and hardware sales.

Sony also set a not-so-impressive record in the period by shipping less PlayStation 4 consoles than any other holiday period in the platform's history. The games-maker only shipped 200,000 PS4s during Holiday 2021. This is the second quarter in a row that Sony shipped this particular low PS4 volume.

EA recently spent more than $3 billion to acquire Glu Mobile and Codemasters, but it's not done with acquisitions just yet.

The interactive games industry is currently in a content feeding frenzy. Buyouts and acquisitions are running rampant, with acquisitions hitting $85 billion in January 2022 alone between Activision-Blizzard (acquired by Microsoft for $68.7 billion), Zynga (acquired by Take-Two for $12.7 billion), and Bungie (acquired by Sony for $3.6 billion). Gaming's biggest companies are getting snapped up left and right.

Electronic Arts is one such company that could either be a builder or consolidator. The publisher is currently open to new acquisitions and will be "looking at everything," EA CFO Blake Jorgensen says.

EA has confirmed its new Skate 4 game will support user-generated content.

EA says its new Skate project will "launch soon," and that UGC, or user-generated content, will be at the very center of the new game. It's likely the title will have a park editor similar to Skate 3 that allows gamers to create and share their own unique and custom skate parks online.

The full quote from Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson can be found below, transcribed from the Q3'22 earnings call:

EA confirms it will continue bringing its core games to EA Play, and the subscription service may one day serve non-gaming content too.

In a recent Q3'22 earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson teases that EA Play could get content that goes "beyond gaming."

Wilson doesn't elaborate, but it's possible EA could use its subscription service to deliver transmedia content such as TV shows and even smaller films based on wholly-owned franchises like Apex Legends or Battlefield.

EA plans to release as many as 4 new projects in FY23, which aligns with previous comments made by the publisher.

EA confirms it has 3-4 new unannounced projects that it will release in the Fiscal Year 2023 period (April 2022 - March 2023).

"There are 3-4 more games coming in FY23 that we haven't announced yet. We are trying to grow our portfolio year-over-year with new titles, new IP, new expansion,"

Apex Legends will deliver nearly $1 billion in revenues through Fiscal Year 2022, EA confirms.

Since its 2019 debut, Apex Legends has become one of the most profitable franchises in EA's portfolio. The franchise generated over $1 billion in total lifetime revenues in less than two years, and made $600 million alone in FY2021. Now the game is expected to deliver even more in FY2022.

In a recent Q3'22 earnings call, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said Apex will make "close to $1 billion in FY22." This revenue was driven by a sharp 30% spike in players during the holiday period, as well as 540 million accounts worldwide, of which 180 million were MAUs.

EA has seemingly cooled down on its gung-ho plans to support NFTs.

A bit ago, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said NFTs and play-to-earn were "important parts" of gaming's future. Now Wilson's discussion on NFTs is more lukewarm.

In a recent Q3'21 earnings call, Wilson delivered new comments on NFTs that seem to consider the incredibly strong pushback from the controversial speculative business model.

EA says Battlefield 2042's sales were "disappointing," executives say the sales miss will reduce its overall net bookings forecast by $100 million.

EA is aware of the Battlefield 2042 situation and acknowledges that sales have missed their expectations. The publisher says DICE's new shooter delivered "disappointing results," and while no actual sales figures were announced, the company talked up the game in previous calls with extraordinary confidence.

"Battlefield 2042 did not meet our expectations," EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a Q3 earnings call. "Some of the decision choices that we made did not resonate with our community. We are fully committed to realizing full potential of the game and fully committed to our fans."

Destiny 2's new The Witch Queen expansion might become the most popular post-release DLC in the game's history.

The Witch Queen is already a massive success with over 1 million pre-orders so far, Bungie has announced. A quick bit of math shows Bungie has made at least $40 million from Witch Queen pre-orders so far, assuming every single purchase was the standard $39.99 edition. The mix is likely a lot higher as gamers opt for the more expensive deluxe edition ($79.99) and the 30th anniversary edition ($99.99).

"Thank you to the more than ONE MILLION Destiny players who have pre-ordered Destiny 2: The Witch Queen. With your incredible support, it's on track to be the most pre-ordered expansion in Destiny 2 history," Bungie said.

PlayStation functionality has arrived on Discord. It's pretty basic right now, but it could evolve into a real game-changer for both.

Yesterday PlayStation became integrated into popular chat app Discord. The features are barebones and aren't any different to how Xbox accounts are integrated. As Discord hints, this might be just the beginning, though: "We're excited to continue our partnership with PlayStation and explore how we can collectively create great shared experiences for your friends and communities."'

So what's next? Discord may be a part of the most transformative PlayStation feature introduced to date.

The FTC, not the Justice Department, will examine Microsoft's buyout of Activision-Blizzard for instances of possible anti-trust.

The Federal Trade Commission will be scrutinizing the Microsoft-Activision deal. The convergence of the two tech giants would see Microsoft becoming the third most lucrative video games company in the world behind Sony and Tencent while locking down billion-dollar properties like Call of Duty in the process.

Sources tell Bloomberg that FTC regulators plan to closely investigate whether or not the deal constitutes anti-trust or unfair advantage. If its determined that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard will materially harm competition (for example, Sony could lose over $260 million a year if Call of Duty were kept off of PlayStation platforms), the FTC could sue to block the acquisition similar to how the commission is trying to block NVIDIA's takeover of ARM.

UPDATE:Team17 is ending its NFT worms project.

On the news that Worms developer Team17 is supporting NFTs (much to the dismay of its employees), multiple indie studios stand in solidarity and push back against the speculative platform.

NFTs are a hot unregulated craze that's rife with profit, speculation, and scams. Major games-makers like Ubisoft, EA, and Square Enix have expressed interest. Konami and Ubisoft have actually pulled the trigger and minted NFTs based on Castlevania and Ghost Recon. Now smaller publishers like Team17 are using their brands to do the same.

An old-school gamer has recreated one of the most iconic video games of all time with LEGOs.

YouTuber Ian Roosma has built the entire Legend of Zelda NES overworld map using LEGOs. The huge map took 25,000 LEGOs to make and was created as a wall decoration with significant meaning. The map is a whopping 30 x 85 inches and fully mirrors the feature-complete map of the NES classic, with enemies, trees, and of course the iconic dungeons.

Roosma told Kotaku that he used website Bricklink to secure all the myriad of parts (thousands of green and brown pieces) and the map design took roughly 4 months to outline.

Sony's $3.6 billion buyout of Bungie demonstrates just how much the PlayStation ecosystem will evolve.

Like Microsoft with Xbox, Sony also wants to bring PlayStation outside of consoles. Exclusivity helped propel the PS4 and Xbox One era to new heights, but the new frontier of gaming sees live services dominating traditional sales, and these models require access over exclusivity.

Sony has traditionally been slow to adapt to specific ecosystem trends, but this is rapidly changing. It all started with cross-play coming to PS4s in 2018 and offline downloads on PlayStation Now. Then it made the biggest move of all: Bringing first-party games to PC.

Sony plans to buy Bungie for $3.6 billion, but Destiny and future Bungie games will not be PlayStation exclusive.

Soon Bungie will be owned by Sony. Unlike Microsoft's Activision-Blizzard and ZeniMax buyouts, the Sony x Bungie acquisition wasn't about securing exclusives.

This deal is similar to how Tencent operates studios with a hands-off approach; Sony is transitioning from a platform holder to a service holder. Live services thrive on access and exclusivity only restricts engagement.

Sony plans to buy Destiny and Halo creator Bungie for $3.6 billion, however the studio will remain independently run and continue self-publishing its own games.

Sony's acquisition of Bungie won't instantly lock down everything to PlayStation. This is a lot like a Tencent buyout; Instead of coming in and laying down on rules and mandates, Sony will let Bungie operate, create, and distribute its games independently without managerial oversight.

The clarification is especially important since Bungie received a huge $100 million investment from NetEase to fund its "bold new vision." Bungie has also filed trademarks for something called Matter, and is currently working on another Destiny project as well as a new IP.