In The News
For today’s top story, please see the Extra Esports News section.
Nintendo:
Nintendo had the most-seen ads between March 15 and April 16, Eleanor Semeraro writes for VentureBeat. “There were nearly 1.5 billion TV ad impressions during the period measured, with 19 brands spending an estimated $25 million on 64 spots that aired over 8,400 times. Nintendo’s 363.1 million impressions puts it squarely in first place. The company ran 18 commercials over 2,700 times.” Xbox came in 2nd and Respawn Entertainment in 3rd.
The company’s stock jumped “17 percent in morning Tokyo trade on Friday, a day after China’s Tencent Holdings Ltd won a key approval to begin selling Nintendo’s Switch console in the world’s largest video games market,” Reuters reports.
China unveiled its “new rules that will see certain categories banned and the number of games capped,” Engadget’s Steve Dent reports. “Three types of popular games will no longer be allowed: Mahjong and poker, titles based on China’s imperial past, and games that feature blood or corpses.”
Nexon is reportedly offering Disney a controlling stake in the company, The Korea Herald’s Lim Jeong-yeo writes. “The anticipated price for the stake to go on sale is 15 trillion won ($13.2 billion), with premiums for business management rights on top of the Nexon Japan share price … NXC Chairman Kim Jung-ju personally approached a high-ranking Disney representative to discuss acquisition matters.”
South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission will “carry out an extensive review of the consumer regulations of game firms. The Fair Trade Commission has contacted 10 game companies here, 76including Nexon NCSoft, Blizzard and Riot Games, for their opinion,” Lim reports.
Qualcomm, Tencent and Vivo are working together “on a new initiative called Project Imagination,” VentureBeat’s Giancarlo Valdes writes. “Project Imagination is meant to ‘to bring smarter, more efficient, and more immersive experiences to consumers’ through AI.”
Vic Mignogna, the voice actor behind Broly from Dragon Ball, is suing Funimation and other voice actors “claiming defamation and other charges,” Variety’s Liz Lanier writes. “Fellow Funimation voice actors Monica Rial and Jamie Marchi, along with Rial’s fiance Ronald Toye, are also named in the suit. Mignogna’s suit stated that he is suing for interference in other work contracts and that the charges made against him accusing him of sexual harassment are false, and affected his career due to not only Funimation’s decision to no longer work with him, but conventions also canceled his appearances.”
Interviews: id Software’s Tim Willits (GameSpot), God of War’s Cory Barlog (GameSpot), Life Is Strange 2’s Raoul Barbet and Luc Bagadhoust (The Verge).
Extra Esports News:
A spectator at Pound 2019 “launched a dead crab at Juan ‘Hungrybox’ DeBiedma at Laurel Park in Maryland on Sunday following his championship win at that event’s Super Smash Bros. Melee tournament,” ESPN’s Jacob Wolf reports. “The attendee who threw the dead animal on stage fled the venue but was identified … Hungrybox has been the recipient of a significant amount of hate throughout his career in the Super Smash Bros. Melee scene.”
Congratulations Keen Gaming on winning ESL One Mumbai 2019! They defeated Mineski to take home $135,000. Natus Vincere came in 3rd and TNC Predator in 4th.
Esports viewership is on a path to surpass sporting events like the Super Bowl, Dot Esports’ Luke Goodling writes of casino.ca’s study. “Super Bowl LII brought in 103.4 million viewers … the 2017 League of Legends World Championship came close with 80 million viewers. The study didn’t include results from the 2018 World Championship, which came even closer to surpassing the Super Bowl with an estimation of 99 million viewers.” Read the study here.
Supercars and Gfinity AU are partnering, Esports Insider’s Thomas Lace reports. They’re bringing “sim racing back down under. The partnership will see the 2019 Gfinity Supercars Eseries commence in August, and run through to the end of November.”
IN: Jon “Orange” Westberg, George “Boarcontrol” Web and Chris “Feno” Tsako are joining T1’s Hearthstone roster.
Eric “JetLi” Phan and Adam “GodRx” Brown joined Enigma6’s CoD roster.
FaZe Clan has purchased Red Reserve’s CoD Pro League spot and announced their roster.
Elevate purchased Excelerate’s CoD Pro League spot and announced their roster.
Matthew “Royalty” Faithfull joined UYU’s CoD roster.
Denial Esports unveiled its new CoD roster.
Interviews: G2 Esports’ Lindsey Eckhouse (TEO), New Wave’s Daniel Mitre (Esports Insider).
Happy weekend birthday Johnny “S2J” Kim!