News Mash-Up - Week # 2

Top News Items

• • Take Two has acquired the mobile game producer, Zynga, with a $12.7 billion offer. Provided the deal meets approval from US regulatory authorities, the acquisition will be completed by the summer of this year. The $12.7 billion acquisition price is more than double the amount Activision paid for mobile game producer King, back in 2015, and $2 billion more when Tencent acquired mobile game producer Supercell, in 2016. According to Zynga’s 2020 annual report, the company generated almost $2 billion in revenue but with a loss of $405 million in net income. The trajectory in revenue has been very impressive with a CAGR (compound annual growth rate) of +22%.

  • It is estimated worldwide sales for the Switch have reached 101.9 million units by year end 2021, outselling the Wii lifetime sales by 101.6 million units. This makes the Switch the bestselling Nintendo console of all time. Bloomberg has reported that Sony has not yet shelved production of the PS4. Citing supply chain constraints for the PS5, production of the PS4 is expected to occur until 2023, resulting in another 1 million PS4s being shipped up until that date.

  • In an interview with NY Times, Phil Spencer, President of Xbox, believes the retail market "continues to be very strong and grow … so let's make sure we offer our customers choice between subscriptions and transactions". Spencer acknowledges that GamePass is like Netflix but went on to add "subscription is growing faster, just because it’s relatively new. And with GamePass, we were one of the first movers in that space. But the transaction business is very large. We still sell physical discs."

  • Several Twitch streamers have publicly voiced their displeasure that Amazon is taking 50% commission compared to other streaming services where commissions follow the standard 30%. Lack of discoverability on Twitch for less known streamers was another area of contention.

  • In the space of a week when PUBG went free-to-play, the number of concurrent players on Steam doubled to 669K compared to the average number it had in December (300K).

  • Humble Bundle has streamlined its subscription service from two packages to one. Priced at $12 per month the company will release a curated selection of games to its members.

  • Konami’s NFT auction last week for 14 art materials associated with the 35th anniversary of Castlevania generated $118,500.

    
    

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Week commencing Monday 17 Jan. 2022