- Xbox outsells Wii and PS3 in Japan. It sold over three times as many as the PS3. Who would have thought this at the beginning of the year? The analysts must need sedation. This helps support my contention that the 360 will outsell the Wii worldwide over the courses of their respective product lives.
- Google to buy Valve (Rumour). You will have read enough about Valve and Google on here to know exactly why. Gabe doesn’t need the money so Google must be making him a silly offer. I don’t understand why Google would buy the whole company, all they need is Steam. Why buy the content side of things? Also it would help if Google got their marketing act together. Steam could be many times bigger than it is if they marketed it properly. And finally, Google would now have a platform to take on the Microsoft Live service, which they will love.
- Eidos lose $177 million on a turnover of $212 million. That their performance can be so dismal when the industry is booming gives you some idea of the competence of the former management. This is an abysmal situation. The new management seem to have worked hard to make the company fit for purpose. But it is only a matter of time before they are taken over by a major player. Their catalogue of heritage IP is worth far more than their own ability to make money from it. Never mind their poor economies of scale at their current size. Also Codemasters could reverse into them to get a public listing and thus allow their venture capitalists an exit route.
- Games have a positive social effect on teens. This is self evident to anyone who lives in the real world but eludes the likes of the Daily Mail and Prince Charles. The fact is that games aren’t an exclusively solitary occupation like, say, books. There are many aspects to the social side of gaming which do a lot of good in a person’s development.
- Activision Blizzard outperform. This merger is working brilliantly creating huge extra profits for the world’s biggest game publisher. It will be interesting to see if they use their warchest for future acquisitions. And it will be even more interesting to see what Electronic Arts can do to get the number one crown back again.
- Nintendo to have major press conference on October 2nd. This is almost certainly to announce the new DS. But is could be the unveiling of the SuperWii. People are beginning to notice the absence of recent new first party games for both platforms so Nintendo are obviously holding a lot back.
- Google opening Lively to game developers. It is nice to see Google talking to people, even if only a few turned up. Lacklustre marketing means that Lively is more misunderstood than understood. Which is a pity as it could become a major gaming tool.
- Activision plan annual James Bond games. And why not milk the franchise to maximise profit? This is how to run a business. And it is an ideal opportunity to have two teams working on the franchise releasing their games in alternate years.
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Whatever happened to Activision buys FreeStyleGames!
Surely the news story of the week…?
🙂
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I’ve just been hearing about their lovely bonuses, freebies and employee deals. Lucky FreeStyleGames.
Shame it’ll be closed down in a couple of years when Activision and other publishers saturate the market with music games.
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I’m pretty sure that Freestyle can make other kinds of games. Until then though good luck to them on their current venture with Acti-Blizz.
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Google’s not buying Valve: http://kotaku.com/5051164/valve-kills-google-buy+out-rumor