PS5 and Xbox series sales, Activision Blizzard strike … Weekly business news

News business PS5 and Xbox series sales, Activision Blizzard strike … Weekly business news

Sony announces the sale of PS5 and several games

It’s official: Sony has Notice the The PS5 surpassed 10 million consumer sales on July 18. It will therefore have taken 8 months to reach this milestone, up from 9 months for the PS4 in its day. The manufacturer does not fail to congratulate its teams on achieving this feat in a time of health crisis and in the face of production difficulties. In this regard, CEO Jim Ryan said: “Improving inventory levels remains top priority”.

Accompanying this announcement was some game sales revealed, History to highlight the reception reserved for the first few games on the PS5.

• Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Exceeds 6.5 Million Sales on PS5 and PS4. Released on the same day as the PS5 last November, it was around 4 million by the end of December.
• Developed by Sony San Diego Studio, the baseball simulation MLB The Show 21 has the best franchise launch with over 2 million sales on all platforms (PS5, PS4, Xbox series, Xbox One). Interesting clarification: the title has over 4 million players, which gives an idea of ​​the number of people who have tried it thanks to Xbox Game Pass.
• New license for the Housemarque studio, which Sony bought last month, Returns sold 560,000 copies. This PS5 exclusive was released on April 30th.
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, which was added to the PS5 Exclusive list on June 11th, has sold 1.1 million copies. It’s the best start in franchise history.

Finally, it should be noted that Sony will release its financial results for the period April to June 2021 on August 4th.

Xbox Series X | It’s selling better than previous Xbox consoles

Microsoft has its financial results for the last quarter of the fiscal year ended June 30th. A record year for the Xbox division with sales of 13 billion dollars (including 3 billion in the last quarter), the highest result in history before 9.8 billion dollars in the previous year. The opportunity for CEO Satya Nadella to confirm this The Xbox Series X | S has been selling better than any previous Xbox console at this point. This means that by June 30th at least five million Xbox series had been sold worldwide knowing that the Analyst estimates speak of 6.5 million. All of this, we remember, in a context where demand continues to outstrip supply.

The Redmond-based company also announced that Xbox Game Pass and first-party games are growing, without giving any further details. The number of Xbox Game Pass subscribers was officially 18 million last January, but that number has not been updated since then. However, Microsoft advises that Subscribers spend 50% more money in the Xbox ecosystem than others.

Also Read: Xbox Game Pass: Review of Microsoft Service 4 Years After Launch

For the Microsoft group as a whole, this is one whopping annual sales of 142 billion dollars (plus 18%) and net profit of 51 billion dollars (plus 38%) that have been registered. With sales of 58 billion dollars (plus 34%), cloud services remain the American giant’s most important growth engine.

After signing a record 2020-2021 fiscal year, Capcom is well on its way to getting even better. Japanese publisher recognized the best first fiscal quarter (April to June) in its history: 372 million dollars in sales and 133 million dollars in net profit, an increase of 104% and 121% respectively compared to the same quarter of the previous year, which nevertheless benefited from the containment effect. To measure these results, Capcom made almost as much money in this quarter alone … as it did in the entire 2019-2020 fiscal year ($ 138 million in net income).

It must be said that the publisher pulled two large cartridges in the first half of the year: Monster Hunter Rise (March 26th) and Resident Evil Village (May 7th), which sold more than 7 million and 4.5 million units respectively . In total, Capcom sold 13.3 million games between April and June 2021, compared to 9.2 million in the same period last year.

Activision Blizzard: Employees demonstrate and demand action from their management

On July 20, the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) sued legal action against Activision Blizzard. Harassment, discrimination, wage inequality … the agency, which is based on a survey carried out over two years and several testimonies, accuses the American publisher of having continued a toxic corporate culture.

Also read: Activision Blizzard: The company accused by the California state of poison culture

Several reactions have taken place since then. In a statement to Bloomberg, Activision Blizzard initially strongly criticized this complaint, alleged that the allegations “do not represent the working environment of Activision Blizzard today”. A group leader, Frances Townsend, said in one Internal memo that this complaint was “groundless and irresponsible” and that included “old stories factually incorrect and out of context”. Blizzard President J. Allen Brack also released one Internal mailto judge these allegations “extremely annoying”. Reactions “disgusting and offensive” according to employees who wrote an open letter (to be read here in full) addressed to the company’s management. She has been since then signed by more than 2,600 employees (of 9500) and former employees. Here is an excerpt :

Our values ​​as employees are not faithfully reflected in the words and deeds of our executives (…) Claims that are viewed as “skewed and in many cases wrong” create a corporate atmosphere that does not listen to the victims. It also casts doubt on our organization’s ability to hold perpetrators accountable and create an environment in which victims can express themselves. These statements make it clear that our leaders do not put our values ​​first. Immediate change is required at the highest level of our organization.

In process, a day of strike took place on Wednesday, July 28th, with a protest outside the Blizzard campus in California. organizer ask including an improvement “the conditions of company employees, especially women, especially women of color and transgender women, non-binary people and other marginalized groups”. Other employees and former employees spoken on social networks to share their experiences. Internally, the situation would be so tense that “There is almost no work going on on World of Warcraft at the moment” accordingly Jeff Hamilton, Senior System Designer in MMO.

Given the situation Activision Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick has finally responded. In a letter to the staff and published publicly, he initially admits that his company’s initial responses were inappropriate. Most importantly, it makes a list of actions that take effect immediately. “We will immediately evaluate the company’s managers and executives. Anyone who has compromised the integrity of our complaint and sanction assessment process will be fired. There is no discrimination, harassment or inequality of any kind anywhere in our company.”he wrote in particular. The CEO also hired the law firm WilmerHale to review the company’s policies and procedures.

Note that 500 Ubisoft employees and former employees gave their support in an open letter transmitted to Axios media, to her colleagues at Activision Blizzard.

Coming soon in the week’s business news

• Mortal Kombat 11 has passed the whopping 12 million sales milestone. The total turnover of the franchise company founded in 1992 amounts to 73 million dollars today.
• Kojima Productions a revealed first sales figure for Death Stranding. The game passed the five million mark in March last year, rated a performance “pretty good” by Jay Boor, Publishing Director. As a reminder, a PS5 version of “Director’s Cut” will arrive on September 24th.
• The charming Death’s Door, published by Devolver and developed by Acid Nerve (Titan Souls), drew over 100,000 players in one week.
• A promising start to the New World. Amazon’s MMO is currently Top seller on Steam, and its beta combines more than 200,000 players connected at the same time. It will be officially released on August 31st.
• Dr. Mario World will close its doors on November 1st. It’s the lowest-grossing Nintendo mobile game ($ 13.9 million since its launch in July 2019).
• Since its release in December 2020 League of Legends: Wild Rift grossed nearly $ 65 million on iOS and Android Sensor tower. On the same platforms, Teamfight Tactics and Legends of Runeterra cost $ 28 million and $ 16 million, respectively.
• Veterans from Naughty Dog, Bungie, Infinity Ward, EA, and Sony Santa Monica have based a new “AAA-Studio”: This is No Moon. You will be working on an action-adventure narrative game backed by a financial investment ($ 100 million) from SmileGate.