In The News
Rocket League is heading to China. It “has received game approval by the Chinese government, exiting a two-year beta period,” TEO’s Hongyu Chen writes. “The game will be free to play in the Chinese market.”
Sales:
Sony’s PlayStation 4 hit 100 million units sold, “making it the fastest-selling console to hit that number,” Engadget’s Steven Dent writes. “Sony revealed that it sold 3.2 million PS4s between March 31st and June 30th, after announcing that 96.8 million units had sold in the previous quarter.” Despite hitting 100 million, revenue dipped in the first quarter. The “Game & Network Services segment suffered a 14.6% decline in sales year-on-year [while] operating income for the games segment slipped 9.6% year-on-year,” GI.biz’s James Batchelor writes.
Nintendo Switch sales are doing well. It “sold 2.13 million Switch consoles in the three months leading up to June 30th, 2019, bringing lifetime sales to 36.87 million,” Engadget’s Nick Summers reports. Profits in the second quarter dipped 10%, Variety’s Todd Spangler reports. “Quarterly sales grew 2.4%, to about $1.59 billion … Operating profit missed analyst expectations, coming in at $252 million (27.4 billion yen), a year-over-year decline of 10.7%. Net profit dropped 46%.”
Sega Sammy “operating income was up 246.6% this quarter,” GI.biz’s Haydn Taylor reports. It saw a “modest sales increase of 5.7% … while operating income improved from ¥935 million ($8.6 million) to 3,409 million yen ($31.3 million).”
Qualcomm and Tencent are partnering “on projects that could include making the Chinese company’s videogames play better on devices with Qualcomm chips, and create a 5G version of a Tencent-backed gaming phone,” Reuters reports.
Interviews: The Witness’s Jon Blow (GI.biz).
Extra Esports News:
Simplicity Esports acquired PLAYlive Nation, a company which has 44 game centers around the U.S. “Simplicity, a publicly-traded company, fields teams across several games and operates one current gaming center of its own, with plans to build more,” TEO’s Andrew Hayward writes.
ONE Championship and Dentsu are partnering, Dot Esports’ Dexter Tan Guan Hao reports. “Events are already planned, starting with the FGC and Dota 2 circuit.”
IN: Alyson Walker and Tyler Keenen joined OverActive Media.
Greg Stangel joined Misfits Gaming.