What’s happened in the business of video games this past week …
QUOTE | “Consoles may quickly go the way of the dinosaurs.” — Nexon America CEO Daniel Kim, talking about console developers and how they need to go free-to-play.
QUOTE | “I don’t believe an Xbox 360 price cut is imminent.” — Jesse Divnich, game analyst for EEDAR, along with other analysts talking about possible price cuts on the Xbox 360 this Christmas.
QUOTE | “No one in the posh offices at EA or Activision or Sony is watching what you’re saying on the forum; they’re watching where you put your credit card.” — Rachel Weber, journalist for GamesIndustry International, talking with other journalists about the problems with DLC and why some gamers get angry at publishers.
STAT | Five per cent — Amount of Japanese sales of New Super Mario Bros 2 sales that were digital downloads, as Nintendo plans digital downloads for the Wii U.
QUOTE | “On PC it’s only around five-to-seven per cent of the players who pay for F2P, but normally on PC it’s only about five-to-seven per cent who pay anyway, the rest is pirated.” — Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, explaining why free-to-play is an effective way to market games to many territories.
STAT | Eight per cent — Amount that revenue for Dell (Alienware’s parent company) fell in the second quarter; Dell expects sales to drop again this quarter, blaming smartphones and tablets.
QUOTE | “As the new age of gaming flies, the old era flounders as everyone fights amongst themselves.” — Johnny Minkley, game broadcaster, talking about the rise of AAA mobile titles and how it’s reshaping the industry.
QUOTE | “This stock is definitely not for the faint of heart.” — Stock analysis site Seeking Alpha, talking about GameStop stock and how it’s trying to make a profit with retail sales declining and the market changing fast.
STAT | 2.2 million — Number of PlayStation Vita units sold so far worldwide; Sony is still predicting overall sales will hit 10 million by next March.
QUOTE | “For all of the major titles releasing in Q3 and Q4, reservations are up on every single one of them.” — GameStop President Tony Bartel, talking about why he expects game sales to look better in the second half of this year.
QUOTE | “We don’t know free-to-play, we’ve just conquered this player versus player niche.” — Victor Kislyi, CEO of Wargaming.net, talking about the success of World of Tanks and his plans to conquer wargaming.
STAT | 20 million — Number of members in GameStop’s PowerUp Rewards program; GameStop said the signups had exceeded their expectations.
This Week in the Business courtesy of GamesIndustry International
Image from Shutterstock
These quotes just go to show how out of touch, alot of these CEOs' in the game industry really are.
“No one in the posh offices at EA or Activision or Sony is watching what you’re saying on the forum; they’re watching where you put your credit card.”
Ozgameshop :P
ozgameshop? why them? just wondering...
This makes me think. Are these companies seeing a dip in the Australian market because of grey importing?
Could this be the reason they seem to misinterpret Australia as being a smaller market then what it actually is?
Yeah this weekly rundown is a good laugh.
This is one of the stupidest things I've read in a while. I think I actually lost a few IQ points.
"consoles may soon go the way of the dinosaurs"
not when games like Mario Cart Wii and Call of duty sell 30 million copies.
I can't see how over 90% of pc gamers pirate every single one of their games