News Mash-Up - Week # 44

Top News Items

• • In the latest financial statements made by the CEOs of Ubisoft, Take Two and EA, NFT and blockchain were all mentioned as being a possible future that they would seek an interest in. Andrew Wilson, EA’s CEO, stated that NFTs will be an "important part about the future of our industry". Strauss Zelnick, Take Two’s CEO, stated "If you believe in collectible physical goods, I don't know why you wouldn't believe in collectible digital goods…so, I am a big believer”. Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft’s CEO, stated blockchain games are a "revolution" in the industry and went on to state “we want to be one of the key players there". Ubisoft already employs a blockchain analyst and in its financials formally announced its intention to develop "play-to-earn" NFT and blockchain games.

  • Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics have removed pay-to-win microtransactions from its new game Marvel's Avengers one month after introducing them.

  • After initially testing in Poland, Netflix will roll out its video game offering to all its regions around the world. The roll out will form part of the Netflix subscription offering with no microtransactions. It is currently only available for Android apps, but Netflix is working on an iOS solution.

  • In the last two weeks, Q3’21 calendar financial results have released. In regards to first party publishers, Microsoft announced that Xbox content and services revenue increased by +2%. Xbox hardware revenues were up +166% vs last year. Sony sold 13.4 million PlayStation 5 consoles worldwide since its launch. The gaming division (including hardware) generated $5.7 billion in revenue in Q2 2021. The PlayStation division accounted for 27% of total Sony revenue, an increase of 3 percentage points compared to Q3’20, and is the highest revenue making division for Sony. Nintendo declared that the Switch production has been reduced by 20% due to the chip shortage and supply chain issues. Nintendo had planned to produce 30 million units by March next year, but it will only be able to hit 24 million. So far Nintendo has sold 93 million Switch units since launch with 681 million software units. That makes for a lifetime global attachment rate of 7.3.

  • SEGA announced it will be working with Microsoft cloud-based Azure technology to help the company with the diversification of its work portfolio and to seek efficiencies in the workplace.

  • Devolver Digital had a successful IPO last week. The company is now public and valued at $950 million. NetEase and Sony now own 8% and 5% respectively. The company aims to expand production.

  • Pax South (slated for January 2022) has been indefinitely closed (due to lack of interest) and BlizzCon 2022 has also been cancelled due to Covid.

    
    

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Week commencing Monday 8 Nov. 2021