Resident Evil Village, Oculus, Guilty Gear Strive: this week’s business news

News business Resident Evil Village, Oculus, Guilty Gear Strive: this week’s business news

Charts USA: Resident Evil Village s’impose en mai

The US video game market generated $ 4.5 billion in May (+ 3% over a year). A month dedicated to the publication of Resident Evil Village, which hits the biggest start of the year in 2021, achieve and is right next to the Annual ranking, Derrière Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Selon NPD group, it’s also one of the best starts to the entire Resident Evil saga, with no further explanation on the subject. Capcom’s game is ahead of the month’s other big release, Mass Effect: Legendary Edition, which we find at number 2, followed by MLB The Show 21, CoD Black Ops Cold War, and New Pokémon Snap. A little lower we find the exclusivity of PS5 Returnal (8th), released on April 30th, or It Takes Two (15th), Biomutant (16th) and Monster Hunter Rise (18th), to name the most recent releases. Also noteworthy is the return of Days Gone (21st) due to the start of its PC porting on May 18th, while NieR Replicant and Outriders are missing from the ranking after starting in 4th and 5th respectively in April. The Nintendo Switch tops the list for console sales … for the 30th consecutive month.

The 20 bestsellers in May in the US

The 10 best sales of the current year in the USA

Facebook is testing in-app ads on Oculus

In the coming weeks, Oculus VR headset users will discover targeted advertising across three apps : Blaston (a paid game by Resolution Games) and two others currently unspecified. An example is shown in the adjacent picturewhere we can see an advertising banner in the virtual environment. When targeting, a pop-up window labeled “Sponsored” appears with an advertising link. A “little test” before more global integration: “As soon as we see how this test goes and receive feedback from developers and the community, we will provide more details on when ads will become more widely available on the Oculus platform and the Oculus mobile app.”, we can read on Blog of the company that was acquired by Facebook in 2014.

According to Andrew Bosworth, head of Facebook Reality Labs, the aim of this initiative is in particular “To help developers generate income”. He adds that “It also helps keep VR material more accessible to large numbers of people.”. Users have the same control over ads as they do on Facebook: so it will be It is possible to hide a specific ad or all ads from the same advertiser. “Adding advertising to the Oculus platform doesn’t change our privacy and advertising policies”, we can read, even if “Facebook receives new information, such as your interactions with an Oculus ad”. As a reminder, in October last year, the use of a Facebook account became mandatory for Oculus headsets.

Guilty Gear Strive is off to a hot start

Released June 11th on PC, PS4 and PS5, Guilty Gear Strive has sold more than 300,000 copies worldwide. “An extraordinary success” for Arc System Works, which launched this fighting game saga in 1998. It is without a doubt the best start to a Guilty Gear game as this new work has been released worldwide. It is also the first time that a sales figure has been communicated at the launch. The game especially shone on Steam by imposing itself in the Ranking of the best sales of the week and recognize A little bit of 30,939 simultaneous players. It’s logically worse than a fully licensed game like Dragon Ball FighterZ (44 232) but better than other fighting games like Mortal Kombat 11 (27 301), Tekken 7 (18 766) or Street Fighter V (13 807). Sold for $ 59.99, Guilty Gear Strive is already offering a Season Pass with five additional future fighters for $ 29.99. You can find our test of the game here.

Gary McKay, the new boss of BioWare, wants to rebuild the reputation of the studio

Last December BioWare said goodbye to one of its main characters: Casey Hudson, former head of development for the Mass Effect franchise who later became the studio’s general manager. After he left Gary McKay was appointed to action, and it turned out to be ultimately it Approved permanently as the new General Manager of BioWare.

With more than 20 years of industry experience at Electronic Arts, Propaganda Games and Monkey Games, the Canadian says he “Grateful for this chance” and intends to enhance the image of Studio that is now focused on designing the next Dragon Age and Mass Effect after the failure of Anthem and the cessation of developing its revision. “This studio is unique in that it has an incredible history of creating games and universes that are truly loved by large numbers of fans. To me, success means building that reputation again and delivering on that promise of quality.”commented Gary McKay. He adds: “We focus on releasing the types of games BioWare has built its reputation for. High quality RPGs on console, PC and online, with rich stories, unforgettable characters and huge worlds. We keep working on it. The next Dragon Age and Mass Effect, and this is a pivotal year with more to come before it marks the 10th anniversary of Star Wars: The Old Republic.. For his part, Casey Hudson has yet to reveal the project he’s working on.

Coming soon in the week’s business news

• The switch monopolizes the top 5 best physical sales in France (Week May 31 to June 6), in the order Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, Ring Fit Adventure, Miitopia, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
• First released on PS4, then ported to PS5, Stadia, and Xbox Series, Judgment surpassed a million sales. This Yakuza spin-off is eligible for a sequel, Lost Judgment, slated for September 24th.
• The success for It Takes Two continues: the co-op game hit a million sales a month after its release (March 26th), it’s now at two million.
• The board game Momotaro Dentetsu has become the largest Konami sale in Japan. Three million copies have passed since it was released on Switch last November.
• Which E3 conference was most watched live? According to the analyst StreamHatchet, it’s that of Nintendo reached its peak with 3.1 million viewers via Twitch and YouTube Gaming, followed by Xbox (2.3 million), Ubisoft (1.4 million), Square Enix (1.3 million) and Devolver (1.1 million).
• Cyberpunk 2077 is set to return to PlayStation Store on June 21, after being peeled off by Sony shortly after it launched. “Users will continue to experience performance issues with the PS4 edition of the game, with CD Projekt Red currently working to improve stability across all media, so we recommend playing this title on PS4 Pro or PS5 for the best experience enjoy.”warns the manufacturer.
• The Ubisoft Massive Studio (The Division, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Star Wars) will change bosses. David Polfeldt, who has held this position for twelve years, is going on a sabbatical on July 1st. His successor has yet to be named.