news business Xbox boss takes stock, Unity fires en masse and Bungie continues to hunt down cheaters… This week’s business news
This week’s business news includes Unity’s layoff of much of its workforce, Phil Spencer’s general mea culpa over recent Xbox events, and the outcome of a new lawsuit by Bungie against cheat tool vendors. Willingness to grow, market reality and amounts in the millions are therefore on the menu of this weekly review!
Summary
- Unit: A third wave of layoffs in less than a year
- Xbox: For Phil Spencer, Microsoft lost the generation not to lose
- Destiny 2: Bungie wins its lawsuit and snags some nice loot
- Briefly in the business news of the week
Unit: A third wave of layoffs in less than a year
This week, the company Unity has announced that it will part ways with 600 people additionally, after two previous waves where 200 to 300 people were asked to look for a new job. The tech giant, which offers services and tools including the famous rendering engine, will lose 8% of its current workforce, which will remain due to over 7,000 people still remaining massive recruitments during the pandemic. Unity is far from the only company in this situation, as many of the tech giants have been doing the same in recent months.
Whatever the case, this new wave of layoffs will result the closure of around thirty studios in the coming years. But despite the losses of recent years, the layoffs would take place first A vocation to support the growth of the company, according to John Riccitiello
However, the management of the group announces with ambition that Unity will announce operating profitability for the current yearwhich would be quite simply a first since the company was founded in 2004. Unity wants to rely on Grow Solutions (advertising and services) and Create Solutions (engine).
Xbox: For Phil Spencer, Microsoft lost the generation not to lose
The launch of Redfall has largely reignited debate over Microsoft’s ability to impose its games on the landscape. Between games announced a long time ago but still mysterious, the rejection of the CMA’s acquisition of Activision Blizzardand the failed release of Arkane Austin’s game, we can’t say that the atmosphere in the Xbox division is particularly festive.
After a few days of silence, the company emerged from the forest Phil Spencer appearing on the Kinda Funny Games channel’s Xbox show. We might have expected some kind of wooden language sprinkled with elements of classic industry languages, but the Xbox division head let loose and showed one quite unexpected transparency. So first he talked about the sales decline of the Xbox series, which cannot compete with the PS5:
We don’t intend to sell more consoles than Sony or Nintendo. There really is no miracle solution for us. I know this is going to piss a lot of people off, but the truth is when you’re third in the console market and the two main players are strong as they are and in some cases very quietly focused on partnerships and other complicated things for the team , it’s our fault and no one else’s.
And I see comments that you just have to make great games and everything works out. It’s not fair to say that all we have to do is make great games and suddenly console market share changes dramatically. With the Xbox One, we lost the generation that shouldn’t be lost, the one where everyone built their digital gaming library. We want our Xbox community to feel good, but this notion that releasing more great games would be enough to win the console race doesn’t represent reality for most people.
What happens today is for Phil Spencer one of the consequences of the ongoing dematerialization of game saleskeeping machine owners in the ecosystem for the next generation, Microsoft “Lost” the PS4/One battle. It would also have been this observation that would certainly have motivated the company to put the package on the development of one complete ecosystem around the Game Pass. The idea is to no longer sell machines by the pallet, but instead to get the players using a mobile device, Xbox console or PC.
90% of the people who walk into a store to buy a console each year are already members of one of the three ecosystems and their digital library is there. This is the first generation where the main games are previous generation games like Fortnite, Roblox and Minecraft. The continuity from generation to generation is really strong. (…) There is no world where Starfield is 11 out of 10 and people start selling their PS5. It’s not going to happen.
Destiny 2: Bungie wins its lawsuit and snags some nice loot
When Destiny 2 launched a few years ago, Bungie warned: Life for scammers will be “awkward, brutal, and short.”. We can say that the studio, now owned by Sony, has lived up to its promise. Fraudsters have therefore been hunted down in a variety of ways. Classic anti-cheat systems have been implemented, but Bungie has also attempted to circumvent the untraceability of certain methods through surveys
We found out last February Phoenix Digital, which offers cheat solutions using AimJunkies software, was ordered to pay a total of 4.3 million dollars to Bungie. In total, AimJunkies was accused of more than 1,463 violations, each of which carried a $2,500 fine, with several other penalties to be added. But Phoenix Digital is far from offering cheat tools, and in any case, the fight against malicious players is endless. Yet another company was convicted! Mihai Claudiu-Florentin, owner of a company that sells cheat tools, now has to pay 12 million dollars in damages for Bungie.
The April 26 hearing corresponds to a Complaint filed in 2021and saw Mihai Claudiu-Florentin found guilty of copyright infringement, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, and “unfair interference in the contractual relationship between Bungie and other Destiny 2 users.” Other lawsuits are pendingand in particular against LaviCheats, for which Bungie is demanding $6.7 million.
Briefly in the business news of the week
- Tchia, the open world of Awaceb, is a success! The title has been played by a million players and that success will be fleshed out with a physical version releasing on July 18th on PS4 and PS5.
- Haruhiro Tsujimoto, COO of prolific publisher Capcom, hopes Street Fighter 6 will reach and surpass 10 million copies. A desire motivated by hit sales of Resident Evil and Monster Hunter.
- Dead Island 2 (PS5) dominates the physical market in France in week 16, followed by Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp, Minecraft Legends (Switch), Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and… its Xbox One / Series version.
- Plaion (formerly Koch Media) will merge with Deep Silver, Prime Matter and Ravenscourt. According to Games Industry, the layoffs will only affect 5 to 6 people
- Marvel’s Midnight Suns will ultimately not come to Switch. The announcement came in a more general press release about upcoming PS4/One releases.
- Square Enix has sold over two million copies of the games featured in the Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster series.
- Ryo Nagamatsu, one of Nintendo’s leading composers, who worked on Super Mario Galaxy Splatoon, Mario Kart,
The Legend of Zelda, or Wii Sports Resort, announced his retirement after 15 years with the Japanese publisher. He wants to broaden his horizons and work for the entire industry.
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