The increasing supply of next-generation consoles should give fresh impetus to video game demand over coming years, with the blockbuster release cadence expected to accelerate and fuel industry growth.
The transition to new consoles is historically a boon for game software publishers as consumers eager to test the capabilities of their new machines spend more and as publishers ship more blockbusters to fully take advantage of this rising consumer spending.
Gaming experiences on mobile devices are also expected to make a quantum leap over coming years as 5G becomes mainstream and gives a boost to immersive augmented reality applications and game streaming.
Game streaming and cloud gaming will be major drivers as they will remove the need to buy expensive hardware to play games, accelerate the shift to subscription business models and usher in cross-play (users on a specific platform will have the ability to play/compete with users on other platforms).
The growing popularity of live streaming and eSports appears as a secular trend and is expected to offer both increased engagement and new revenue streams (media rights, sponsorship…) to game publishers.
In the longer term, gaming companies appear at the forefront of the Metaverse revolution, a 3D virtual world where users can remain engaged even when they are not actively playing: they can chat, watch others and share moments around special events (concerts, movies…). The Metaverse will come with its own economy and new monetization opportunities (advertising, NFT collectibles…).
Video gaming assets should then keep attracting M&A interest from Tech and Media giants seeking to bolster their content library amid the rise of video game streaming and to consolidate their position in the Metaverse.
Earlier this year, Google unveiled an eye-popping text-to-video games model called Genie that allowed to build basic playable games in 2D based on a short description. Six months on, AI in video gaming has made significant advances with gaming giants Roblox and Tencent presenting in recent days their own Generative AI technology that now allows to…
Chinese video game Black Myth: Wukong, an adaptation of the 16th-century Chinese tale “Journey to the West”, has made the headlines this week as it became an instant global hit, claiming more than 1 million concurrent players on gaming platform Steam within an hour of its Tuesday release and 2.2 million players by Wednesday (without…
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,…
Over the last couple of months, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed to block two M&A deals in the video game space, first the acquisition of virtual reality start-up Within (that developed a VR fitness app) by Meta and, last week, the blockbuster takeover ($69 billion) of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft. Both legal…
Despite the post-pandemic gaming slowdown and initial macro headwinds, quarterly reports from game makers have been decent overall, with revenue/bookings hovering between moderate growth (Capcom, Ubisoft, EA, Square Enix, Roblox…) and moderate decline (Tencent, Activision, Take-Two…) and earnings expectations/guidance being materially cut in a very limited number of cases (Roblox, Take-Two). As expected, console and…
Even if the gaming industry is still affected by tough comparisons with a pandemic-driven 2021, there are some encouraging signs giving confidence in the 2023 outlook. Notably, console sales, which had been underwhelming due to supply constraints, have been accelerating in the last three months and reached 19% growth in the US in September according…
In line with recent press reports, Tencent has acquired a 49.9% stake in Ubisoft’s family holding company, Guillemot Brothers Ltd (which owns a 13% stake in Ubisoft), in a deal that values the French video game maker (a portfolio company) around EUR75-80 per share and reflects a premium around 80%. Tencent, which already owned directly…
We have been arguing for more than one year that video gaming assets could attract significant M&A interest from Tech and social media giants and Microsoft’s reported takeover talks with Activision today clearly confirm our view. The deal, if confirmed, would mark a major step-up in Microsoft’s gaming M&A strategy after its purchase of Bethesda…
If Facebook’s long-term strategy was not yet clear enough for everyone, its recent name change to Meta unambiguously states the company’s objective to be a major actor in the buildout of Internet’s upcoming (r)evolution, which premises are already starting to be visible through different angles. From the gaming industry’s perspective, the Web’s next iteration will…
Major video games are gradually turning into Metaverse destinations offering to their vast user base a wide range of activities well beyond gaming and including notably social interactions, entertainment and shopping in a 3D world. Roblox, our second largest portfolio company, clearly stands ahead of the pack when it comes to building a Metaverse, as…
Facebook made the headlines last week when it announced a rebranding to Meta, a strategic shift towards the Metaverse and massive investments over coming years to support its ambitions (starting with $10 billion in 2021). While the timing of these announcements could have much to do with an attempt to divert attention from recent bad…
There has been a lot of talk recently about the Metaverse, with notably Mark Zuckerberg commenting during Facebook’s latest earnings call that “we believe this is going to be the successor of the mobile Internet … In addition to being the next generation of the Internet, the Metaverse is also going to be the next…
Netflix’s long-awaited entrance into the video game market was “officialized” last week when news broke that the company had hired a gaming industry veteran, Mike Verdu, to lead the initiative. This is a natural move for Netflix, that needs to find new avenues of growth beyond an increasingly competitive video streaming market and that has…
A couple of weeks ago, we commented that the Augmented Reality (AR) theme was heating up with several major new games (Pikmin, the Witcher…) and devices (Snapchat spectacles) hitting the market and that AR glasses could take over smartphones as the new major gaming platform in a near future as they offer more immersive AR…
It’s already been 5 years since the Pokemon Go phenomenon brought Augmented Reality (AR) to the masses, with the game developed by Niantic (held by both Google and Nintendo) reaching more than 500 million users by the end of 2016 and still remaining at the top of app store downloads in 2021. Despite this initial…
Even if video gaming stocks have not been spared by the massive Tech correction of the last few weeks, it’s worth noting that several Tech giants keep spending big on gaming M&A, in a clear sign of confidence in the industry’s outlook and valuation in a post-pandemic world. Just a few weeks after the completion of…
The newsflow in the gaming industry remains extremely supportive, to say the least. Last week, Nvidia commented that demand for its graphics cards was significantly exceeding supply and Ubisoft announced that its latest Assassin’s Creed title was the biggest first-week seller in the franchise, suggesting that consensus relatively low expectations for Assassin’s Creed Valhalla are…
Last week, highly popular video game Fortnite hosted an in-game virtual concert by rapper Travis Scott. The performance attracted a record 12.3 million players, a number that should be revised upwards when taking into consideration people who watched the concert outside of the game on streaming platforms like Twitch and YouTube. While some could argue…
Video gaming has undoubtedly been one of the rare safe havens in the equity market in recent weeks, as illustrated by the performance of our Gaming certificate (down just 3.7% month-to-date). The industry should indeed emerge largely unscathed from the current health crisis as an expected surge in digital revenue, with hundreds of millions of people…
NAV & Performance
ISIN
CH0473580212
Currency
USD
Type
Active Equity
Issuer / Rating
UBS / S&P A+
Inception Date
20.12.2019
Liquidity
Daily