There have been signs of improving activity lately on the two leading Metaverse platforms, Roblox and Epic. While the former posted growth in average daily active users in a 17-22% range in recent quarters, the latter opened its Fortnite virtual world to major brands Lego and Disney that have or are in the process of…
Even if it’s a decades-old industry, video games remain an incredibly young business that stands at the forefront of new technologies including, obviously, AI. Since the beginning of the year, AI has been all about multimodal models and notably text-to-video, with OpenAI revealing its generative model Sora. But Google pushed the envelope of what’s possible,…
We commented last month that video game maker Epic’s legal victory against Google in its antitrust lawsuit was likely to have serious implications for the app store duopoly and for the mobile gaming industry. As both Apple and Google generally charge commissions of as much as 30% to app developers who have few other options,…
This morning, the Chinese administration issued new draft rules for online games aiming to limit spending and tackle game addiction. While the document lacks details, the new rules would introduce spending limits (prohibition of high-priced transactions, recharge limits…) and prohibit certain user engagement methods (rewards for daily log-in and first-time/multiple purchases). We believe that the…
Take-Two, one of the largest positions in both our Metaverse and Gaming certificates, is now expected to release in the next couple of weeks the highly anticipated trailer for the next chapter in the Grand Theft Auto (GTA) video game franchise, GTA VI. For those who are not familiar with the franchise, GTA is an…
Niantic, the developer of massive mobile hit Pokemon Go, released in recent weeks in collaboration with Japanese game maker Capcom its newest location-based and augmented reality (AR) title, Monster Hunter Now. The game lets users explore the world and achieve missions while fighting gigantic monsters, the AR technology allowing to blend the digital monsters with…
Microsoft’s $69 billion takeover of Activision Blizzard has faced many antitrust hurdles since its announcement in January 2022, but the legal challenges now seem to be easing. In the US, a federal judge rejected yesterday the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) request for a preliminary injunction to block the deal, considering that the FTC had not…
Newsflow is the video gaming industry is definitely improving after the post-pandemic lull. Nintendo’s latest Zelda set a new record for the series (10 million units sold in 3 days), confirming that consumer spending on well-known franchises remains well oriented and largely unaffected by the macro environment. And importantly, most game publishers are now taking…
After a tough 2022 year (-7%) dragged down by unfavorable comparisons with a pandemic-driven 2021, videogame content sales in the US are showing signs of life with a 1% growth in February, according to industry tracking group Circana. While this recovery is not impressive yet, hardware spending, which can be viewed as an early indicator…
Nvidia’s Gaming revenue in Q4 came out sharply down again (-46% year-on-year) as the company is navigating an unprecedented inventory correction related to the post-pandemic video gaming slowdown (and, to a lower extent, the collapse of demand for crypto mining cards) and is still facing tough quarterly comparisons. Even if the top-line figure was uninspiring,…