Nintendo Switch, Fortnite, Activision Blizzard: the business news of the week

News business Nintendo Switch, Fortnite, Activision Blizzard: the business news of the week

Historical benefits for Nintendo

Fiscal year 2021 will be a milestone in the history of Nintendo. The Kyoto company was well supported by the health situation and the explosion in video game consumption recognized an operating profit of 4.8 billion dollars, a new record for all manufacturers. Four years after its publication The switch reaches a total of 84.59 million consoles distributed worldwide, including 28.83 million between April 2020 and March 2021. In the entire history of consoles, only the Nintendo DS has achieved better results (31.2 million in 2008-2009 and 30.3 million in 2007-2008). The switch is also used for eighth best-selling console of all timein front of machines like the PSP and the GBA. At this rate, the Wii (102 million) should be overtaken this year, while the DS (154 million) and PS2 (155 million) are still a long way off.

Period	sales	Operating profit	net profit
April 2020 to March 2021	EUR 13.3 billion (+ 34.4%)	4.8 billion dollars (+ 81.8%)	3.6 billion dollars (+ 85.7%)
April 2019 to March 2020	EUR 9.9 billion	2.6 billion dollars	1.9 billion dollars

The numbers are also dizzy when you look at game sales. Switch is important 36 games (including 14 from third-party providers) were sold over a million times in the financial year. At the top: Animal Crossing New Horizons (20.85 million), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (10.62 million), Super Mario 3D All-Stars (9.01 million), and Ring Fit Adventure (7.38 million). During this period 79.4% of Switch games sold were Nintendo games. Another important detail: The proportion of games that are available for download on Switch has increased from 34% to 42.8% within one year. Big news for Q1 2021, Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Rage, got off to a good start with 5.59 million copies distributed, which is almost the same as the total for the original game on Wii U (5.87 million ). After this record year, Nintendo expects a decline for the current financial year, but is still aiming to distribute 25.5 million additional switches A total of 110 million switches worldwide as of March 31, 2022. In the list of upcoming games that have been revealed we can find Miitopia (May 21), L’Atelier du Jeu Vidéo (June 11), Mario Golf: Super Rush (June 25), The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (July) 16), Sparkling Pearl / Sparkling Diamond Pokémon (late 2021) or Pokémon Legends: Arceus (early 2022).

Activision Blizzard signs a record quarter from Call of Duty

In line with the industry as a whole, Activision Blizzard also had a record year 2020 with sales of 6.7 billion dollars and net income of 1.8 billion dollars. 2021 continues in the same way since the publisher presented Results increased sharply for the first quarter. Of the group’s three branches, Activision has the best numbers : 741 million dollars in sales, operating profit of 367 million dollars and 150 million active players, a new record for the publisher due to the development of the Call of Duty franchise. The traditional annual release is now backed by Call of Duty: Warzone, whose integration with Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War kept the game’s revenue higher than usual earlier in the year. Add to this the success of Call of Duty: Mobile, which has had more than 500 million downloads and a billion in revenue since October 2019.

Period	sales	Operating profit	net profit
January to March 2021	1.8 billion dollars (+ 27%)	$ 661 million (+ 30%)	514 million dollars (+ 23%)
January to March 2020	1.8 billion dollars	509 million dollars	419 million dollars

king also shines with a turnover of 506 million dollars, an operating profit of 168 million dollars and 258 million active users Thanks to Candy Crush, the most profitable franchise in the App Store in the United States. For his part, Blizzard achieved a turnover of 401 million dollars and an operating profit of 173 million dollars for 27 million active users. A declining audience for several years (38 million in early 2018, 32 million in early 2019, and 30 million in early 2020), despite the dazzling start of World of Warcraft: Shadowlands last October, until Diablo Immortal, Diablo II: Resurrected, Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV note that 70% of Activision Blizzard’s revenue comes from DLCs, subscriptions, and other microtransactions. While the company is regularly talked about layoffs in specific sectors (publishing, sports, etc.), management has reiterated its desire to hire more than 2,000 developers in 2021 and 2022.

Fortnite generated $ 9 billion in 2018-2019

The opening of the trial between Epic Games and Apple this week exposed a lot of normally confidential information, particularly about the financial health of the developer of Fortnite and the Unreal Engine. Thanks to this document, we learn that the battle royale generated $ 5.4 billion in 2018 and $ 3.7 billion in 2019… or 97% or 88% of the company’s total sales. In those two years combined, the Unreal Engine raised $ 221 million, the Epic Games Store raised $ 235 million, and other Epic Games games (mostly Rocket League) raised $ 108 million. But most of all, it’s Epic Games profitability that imposes it: as the analyst points out Oscar Lemaire, Operating profit for 2018 ($ 2.8 billion) was the same as that of Electronic Arts, Activision Blizzard and Take-Two Interactive combined. It was also superior to that of PlayStation and Nintendo. As you can see on the contrary, PlayStation players make up most of the spending in Fortnite.

EGS Free Games: How Much Do Epic Games Cost?

Fortnite’s monster revenue will thus make it possible to cover the Epic Games Store’s losses ($ 181 million in 2019, $ 273 million in 2020). The PC store, which was launched in December 2018, is still in a phase of user acquisition with many free games and temporary exclusive products. An expensive strategy: As the adjacent document shows, Epic Games paid the studios $ 11.6 million to offer 38 free games in the first nine months of its platformlike Subnautica, the Batman Arkham Trilogy, Celeste and Inside. This resulted in 104 million downloads and 5 million new accounts. Unfortunately, the list doesn’t include the amount Epic Games spent to offer GTA V in May 2020 or even Total War Saga: Troy on the day of its release in August 2020 Price for temporary exclusive products, the example given is that of Borderlands 3, released in September 2019 on the Epic Games Store and six months later on Steam. An advance that cost Epic Games $ 115 million. As a result, the company got a minimum $ 80 million guarantee back within two weeks, and 53% of the 1.56 million users who bought the game were new users. As a reminder Epic Games estimates its business won’t be profitable until 2023.

Sony calculates crossplay for developers

Sony rejected crossplay between consoles long before it was accepted on Fortnite in September 2018 and then on other games afterwards. However, this does not happen without conditions, as can be seen from a document published by The edge. Indeed, Publishers of cross-play titles may be required to pay a license fee to Sony if the relationship between the game time spent on PlayStation and the income generated from the same game on PlayStation is disproportionate. “In certain circumstances, Epic may have to pay additional revenue to Sony. If someone plays a lot on PlayStation but buys content from an iPhone, it can result in compensation.”Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney stated in court on Monday. According to him, Sony is the only manufacturer using such a practice.

Briefly in the week’s business news

• The TO SELL revealed the physically best sales in France for the week of April 19th to 25th. The forerunner is the PS4 version of NieR Replicant Version 1.22474487139 …, followed by Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Ring Fit Adventure.
• Facebook has acquired the Downpour Interactive (Onward) studio, which therefore joins Beat Games (Beat Saber), Sanzaru Games (Asgard’s Wrath) and Ready At Dawn (Lone Echo) in the Oculus Studios family.
• The list of E3 2021 participants is growing : Bandai Namco, Gearbox Software, Sega, Square Enix and Marvelous / XSEED Games will be available for the event, which will be held online from June 12th to 15th. Capcom, Koch Media, Nintendo, Microsoft, Take-Two Interactive, Ubisoft or even Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment had previously announced their participation.
• John Justice, Stadia Product Director, Left Google. Another departure after those of the managers of the first-party studios that closed last February.
• The global video game market is over $ 300 billion, more than the music and film industries combined, according to a Study by the consulting firm Accenture.
• EA met in baseball with the acquisition of the Canadian studio Metalhead Software, the origin of the Super Mega Baseball license.

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