News Mash-Up - Week # 47

• • During its first 3 days of release, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet sold 10 million copies, twice as many as God of War Ragnarök did the week prior (5.1 million units). Across the games industry, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet attained numerous achievements, including being the fastest-selling Pokémon game of all time, fastest-selling Switch game of all time, fastest-selling Nintendo game of all time, and fastest-selling console game of all time across the likes of Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo.
    
    
  • As the ongoing investigation into the Microsoft acquisition of Activision-Blizzard continues, Microsoft has revealed that earlier this month it offered Sony a 10-year contract of keeping Call of Duty on PlayStation. Sony has not yet commented on this. Right now, there are 16 control agencies around the world looking into this investigation.
    
    
  • During a recent PlayStation event that was live streamed in China, Sony announced its intention to further invest into games developed by Chinese studios through initiatives such as the China Hero Project which was launched in 2017.
    
    
  • Nintendo has issued copyright strikes against the website SteamGridDB because of the images that it used related to some Nintendo Switch games. People use this site to upload their own custom images to use within their Steam libraries, such as alternate cover images, or when a game does not have a cover image (which is common for games played with an emulator, one of the reasons that there are Switch games on the website). So far, this notice is about six specific games (some of Nintendo’s largest releases): Pokémon Scarlet, Pokémon Violet, Splatoon 3, Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Super Mario Odyssey, and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.
    
    
  • Nvidia is the subject of a class-action lawsuit due to the power adapters in its RTX 4090 cards that have been melting, according to multiple clients. The lawsuit accuses Nvidia of “marketing and selling a defective and dangerous product.” Updates to come.
    
    
  • At Paris Games Week, it was announced the French government has decided to extend its video games tax credit scheme, which offers a 30% tax rebate on development cost, until December 31, 2028. So far, this tax credit scheme has supported more than 370 projects from 150 studios.
    
    
  • China’s Game Industry Group Committee has claimed that China has curbed the addiction of its youth to video games. This brings hope that the country may reduce some of its gaming restrictions, as since August 2021, kids have not been allowed to play games for over three hours each week.
    
    
    

Week commencing Monday 21 November 2022