Tag: Business
News Konami Files Trademark For Mysterious 'Project Zircon'
"What is your business here?"
Konami has filed a trademark for 'Project Zircon'. Spotted yesterday by Gematsu and filed on 7th March, we know absolutely nothing about what this means, but it's got some people thinking. As Gematsu mentions on Twitter, zircon has very few connections to the company in general, but there is one that'll be of interest...
News Bowser Defends $70 Zelda Pricing, Nintendo Still "Very Bullish" About Switch
"It’s exciting to see that demand is still there"
While the upcoming The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom might just be the most highly-anticipated video game of all time, the announcement that the title would cost $70 on release opened up the conversation about how much we are all willing to pay for a game in 2023. Doug Bowser, the head of...
News The Pokémon Company Is Looking To Hire Someone With NFT Knowledge
Porygon-B
The Pokémon Company International opened up a new job listing for a Corporate Development Principal a few days ago, and it looks like the position requires the candidate to have a grasp of Web3, including blockchain. The listing was spotted on TPCi's Greenhouse page (via LinkedIn) where all of the company's job listings are posted, and...
News Looks Like Square Enix Is Still Planning To Release Multiple Blockchain Games
Caught in an NFTrance
Square Enix has today released its Outline of Financial Results Briefing, which was held on 3rd February 2023, and from the sounds of a comment from current CEO and president Yosuke Matsuda, blockchain is still very much in the company's future (via Wario64, Stephen Totilo). In response to the question about sustainable growth...
News Two Official Nintendo Stores Have Been Closed Down
It was fun while it lasted
We're used to hearing about the global growth and expansion of Nintendo, but its business operations in Southeast Asia have been cut back in recent times. According to the video game giant's website, both of its official stores in Thailand have been closed. The JD Central store only opened its doors in December 2021...
News Generation Esports Officially Partners With Nintendo For Middle School Esports Event
Smash Ultimate, Mario Kart, and Splatoon 3 are being added
Generation Esports and Nintendo have announced that they're officially partnering up in order to introduce a handful of Nintendo games into the Middle School Esports League Spring Major. Generation Esports is a "scholastic gaming" company that focuses on the impact of video games in schools...
News Saudi Arabia's PIF Is Reportedly Now Nintendo's Biggest Outside Investor
Update: Now 8.3%
Update [Fri 17th Feb, 2023 13:50 GMT]: Following stories earlier this week of further increases in the PIF's investment in Nintendo, Bloomberg now reports that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund now holds 8.3% of Nintendo, according to filings. This makes it the company's largest shareholder outside of Japan. According to...
News Nintendo's Investor Q&A Promises Switch Isn't Dead After Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom
“new titles will continue to be proposed going forward”
Earlier this week we got a look at Nintendo's Q3 financial figures for FY 2023 and there were some big milestones crossed — Switch outselling the Game Boy, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe passing 50 million sales and much more besides. All this pointed towards a Q&A session
News Nintendo's Share Price Takes A Hit Following Latest Financial Report
Dropped by 7%
Nintendo's share price has dropped on the Tokyo Stock Exchange following yesterday's Q3 FY2023 Financial Report (via VGC). The company's price dropped by around 7% since yesterday's report, and at the time of writing, it currently sits at ¥5,226, which is down from ¥5,624. This drop doesn't come as a huge surprise due to the...
News Nintendo Says Switch Chip Shortages Are "Largely Resolved" As It Cuts Forecasts
"Shipments generally went according to plan"
As part of Nintendo's nine-month financial report for the 2022/23 fiscal year, the company has said that supply issues that have constrained production for several years now were "largely resolved" in the closing months of 2022. Commenting on Nintendo Switch sales in its explanatory materials, the...
Let the theories commence
Kit and Krysta, the former hosts of Nintendo Minute, left Nintendo at the start of 2022 after a combined 25 years at the company. This gave them a ton of insight into the secretive company that they're now more than happy to share on their YouTube channel and podcast, including speculation based on their experience —...
News "We Absolutely Apologize" For Pokémon Performance Problems, Says Nintendo Of Canada Manager
"We are working on improvements to these games"
Business interviews are often pretty dry, and a recent chat between Post Arcade — the Financial Post's gaming section — and Nintendo of Canada General Manager Susan Pennefather was no different. But there were some interesting gems hidden in all the biz-speak, so let's take a look! Pennefather...
News Factorio Is Getting A $5 Price Increase "To Account For Inflation"
The second price increase in 5 years
It's no secret that things are costing more these days — and games have been hit just as hard as groceries, rent, and medication, with base prices for new, AAA releases steadily climbing up to (and sometimes past) the $100 mark. But it seems like those price increases are also affecting older games, as the...
News Over A Third Of Devs Still Interested In Making Switch Games, According To GDC Survey
18% of devs are currently making a game for Switch
Ahead of the annual Games Developer Conference this March, GDC has released its 'State of the Game' survey results for 2023, and there are plenty of stats that might interest Switch owners. This annual survey, which you can get a copy of from GDC's website, gives us an insight into the current state...
News Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund Raises Stake In Nintendo To 6%
Up from just over 5%
It has been announced that Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund, or PIF, has upped its previous stake in Nintendo from 5.01% to 6.07%. As reported by Reuters (thanks, GoNintendo), the sovereign wealth fund increased its previous ownership stake in the Kyoto company by 1.06%, as revealed today in a Japanese report filing. This...
News Ubisoft Share Price Tumbles After Dire Sales Report
Three more games cancelled
Ubisoft appears to be in a spot of financial trouble, according to its latest financial report on January 11th, 2023. In a three-page press release, the company admits to being "disappointed" in the sales of Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope and Just Dance 2023, despite "excellent ratings" and "an ambitious marketing plan"...
News 75% Of Public Comments On Microsoft's Acquisition Of Activision Were Positive
Microsoft recently announced 10-year deal with Nintendo
The UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) recently announced that over the course of a two-week window, it received a total of 2,100 public emails regarding Microsoft's planned acquisitiion of Activision Blizzard, of which around 75% were positive. The regulator laid out a high-level...
News The Pokémon Company Takes Crypto Company To Court Over NFT Game
Cease and desist
The Pokémon Company has taken an Australian crypto company to court over the unauthorised use of characters from the Pokémon franchise in an NFT game. As reported by Vooks, an Australian company called 'Pokémon Pty Ltd' (also known as Kotiota Studios) had set up a website advertising an upcoming NFT title called PokéWorld. In...
News Sega Of America Opens New Office In California
New office will house Sega and Atlus' publishing departments
Sega of America has announced that it has opened a new office in Irvine, California, with the intention to house Sega and its subsidiary Atlus' internal publishing departments in one space. The news comes via GamesIndustry, who states that one of the goals of the new location is to...
News The Nintendo Switch Was One Of The Top Black Friday Purchases This Year
Did you get a good deal?
The colossal holiday sale madness known as Black Friday or Cyber Week has just ended, with Cyber Monday wrapping up the weekend of deals. Adobe Analytics has assembled a bunch of graphs and stats for this year's shopping trends, and to no one's real surprise, the Nintendo Switch is way up there as one of the most...
News Games Market Expected To Decline 4.3% Globally This Year, According To Newzoo
"Our long-term outlook for the games market remains positive"
Games market research group Newzoo has published its latest report which forecasts a year-on-year decline of 4.3% for the global games market in 2022, following two years of "exceptional" growth during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the report (thanks, GamesIndustryBiz), the firm estimates...
News While Old Games Are Easily Delivered, Nintendo Is Focused On New Experiences, Says Miyamoto
Still no word on GBA games coming to Switch
Backwards compatibility is rapidly becoming easier for Nintendo than ever before. At least, that's what Shingeru Miyamoto implied at a recent Q&A following the company's latest financial report. And while the Switch continues to build up a growing library of NES, SNES and N64 titles (if you have the...
News Disco Elysium Creators Clash With Studio Owners Over Dismissal
Both parties present conflicting statements
In a significant escalation of the legal battle between Disco Elysium's ousted creators and the development studio ZA/UM, both parties have presented conflicting statements regarding the dismissal of Robert Kurvitz, Aleksander Rostov, and Helen Hindpere. In an online message posted by Kurvitz and Rostov,...
News Nintendo's Q1-2 Digital Sales Make Up Over 50% Of All Software Revenue
Thinking outside the boxed
We have been excited to see Nintendo's growth this morning as the company published its financial report for Q2 of the fiscal year ending March, 2023. One stat that has really stood out to us comes in the continued popularity of digital sales, with this mode of buying now accounting for 49.3% of all software sales in the...
News Nintendo To Merge Its European Subsidiaries Into One Big Organisation
Say hello to Nintendo of Europe SE
As part of its latest financial report, Nintendo has announced that it will be merging its European subsidiary companies, including Nintendo France S.A.R.L, Nintendo Benelux B.V, and Nintendo Ibérica, S.A, into one organisation under the title Nintendo of Europe SE. Currently, these subsidiaries, in addition to...
News Splatoon 3 Sold Almost 8 Million Units In September, 2022
Booyah!
Nintendo has today revealed its financial report detailing the company's growth in Q2 of the fiscal year ending March, 2023. As was to be expected, it was a strong period for Splatoon 3 with the latest shooter shifting a whopping 7.90 million units. This is an impressive number, yes, but it gets even more so when you consider the fact that...
News Nintendo To Establish Joint Venture Company With Mobile Firm DeNA
Nintendo Systems Co. coming in 2023
Alongside its quarterly earnings release, Nintendo has announced its intention to partner with DeNA and establish a joint venture company in April next year. Nintendo has been working with the mobile firm since 2015, partnering to develop systems integrated into its mobile software (such as Super Mario Run and...
News Konami's Earnings Report Reveals A Substantial Profit Drop In The First Half Of 2022
Bring on Silent Hill
Konami has revealed its earnings report for the first six months of the year and the results aren't pretty. Despite the release of some titles with which we have had a lot of fun - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Cowabunga Collection doing a lot of lifting on the 'some' there - the company reported a 34.4% drop in earnings...
News Sonic The Hedgehog's Lifetime Sales Speed Past 1.5 Billion Units
And he's not slowing down
It's been a pretty big year for Sonic the Hedgehog. From the commercial success of his second movie back in April to the impending release of the much-anticipated Sonic Frontiers in November and the new Sonic Prime Netflix series in December, it is getting pretty difficult to miss SEGA's speedy lil spike ball. According to...
News EA Says It Isn't Ending Physical Sales In Certain Countries, Following "Inaccurate" Reports
"We have not stopped physical distribution of our games"
Earlier this afternoon, a report surfaced online suggesting that EA GmbH was planning to cease physical distribution of its games across Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Scandinavia due to the market's increasing shift to digital downloads and the subsequent impact on sales development...
News TMNT: Shredder's Revenge Helped Publisher Dotemu Net A Bodacious $22 Million In Revenue
Totally tubular, dude!
Note. After receiving a statement of correction from Dotemu, we've updated the headline and the article below to clarify that this revenue figure relates to the publisher's global revenue in total, from all its activities, not to the total revenue generated from just this game. For many of us, this summer's gaming was...
News UK Switch Sales Rise In September Thanks To Splatoon 3's Meteoric Opening
More ink-pressive stats
The latest GfK data for September's UK console sales is now in and the figures show that the Nintendo Switch had a healthy boost thanks, in large part, to a little game called Splatoon 3. Now, we're not certain whether you have heard of this one - admittedly, the release was a pretty small affair. Over the course of its...
News Fandom Has Acquired GameSpot, Giant Bomb, GameFAQs, And Metacritic In $55m Deal
Aiming to "super serve entertainment and gaming fans"
The latest big-company-acquires-other-big-company news for once doesn't concern Embracer or Tencent — instead, it's all about Fandom, a for-profit wiki hosting service covering news and information from a huge range of media, in an acquisition that seems to have surprised many. In a post on...
News No Man's Sky Creator Is Happy To Leave Microtransactions Out Of The Game
"what we enjoy is delivering value to players"
We are but a few short days away from No Man's Sky's inaugural flight to Switch on October 7th and we are buckling in to see how this massive game plays on Nintendo's comparatively tiny console. In order to put some of our fears to rest, we recently got the chance to sit down with the game's creator,...
News Splatoon 3 Sales Cause Nintendo's Shares To Surge
Biggest jump since December 2020
After Splatoon 3 inked all over Japanese sales records over the weekend, it's perhaps no surprise that the success of Nintendo's squid-based shooter has caused the company's shares to surge. Bloomberg reports that Nintendo's share jumped 5.5% in Tokyo today, which means this is the
News Square Enix Is Now Part Of A Blockchain
After dipping its toes in NFTs
After months of hints and talking about NFTs, Square Enix has finally become part of a blockchain. Gameindustry.biz reports that the Japanese developer and publisher has partnered with Oasys, which claims to be "an eco-friendly blockchain built for the gaming community, offering the best user experience with fast...
News Tencent Acquires 49.9% "Minority Passive Stake" In Ubisoft Founder's Company
Gets 5% voting rights in Guillemot Bros. Ltd
In the latest round of video game firm acquisition news, Ubisoft has announced that Tencent has acquired "a 49.9% economic stake with 5% voting rights in Guillemot Brothers Limited", Ubisoft's largest shareholder and a company formed by Ubisoft's CEO and founder Yves Guillemot and his family. In a press...
News CNBC Sources State Amazon Is Not Planning To Buy EA
Update: USA Today's FTW responds
Update #2 [Fri 26th Aug, 2022 19:00 BST]: FTW has now updated its original story, stating that "unnamed and unvetted sources" were cited in the reporting on this rumour. Here is the editorial statement in full: "Earlier today, GLHF — a gaming/e-sports outlet and content partner of For The Win — ran a version...
Random Former Nintendo President's Family Office Is Looking To Buy Marine Engineering Firm
Yamauchi family seeks "to tackle profound global challenges"
The Yamauchi No 10 Family Office, a group formed of members of Nintendo's founding family, is looking to buy out marine engineering company Toyo Construction, with the stated aim of helping to make the oceans cleaner, the Financial Times reports (paywall). The Yamauchi family, who owns...
News Nintendo President Says Switch Production Is "Uncertain" Next Year
"We only have a clear production outlook for this year"
In an interview with Nikkei, Nintendo President Shuntaro Furukawa says that, while semiconductor supply issues are looking to improve for the remainder of this fiscal year, next year looks more "uncertain". This follows the publication of Nintendo's financial report for Q1 2022-2023. In last...
News Square Enix Is Potentially Looking To Sell Stakes In Its Studios
After reporting declining financial results
Square Enix has been a mainstay in the industry for years, but it looks like the Japanese publisher and developer is struggling, having reported declining financial results for Q1 2023 (besides the huge success of its MMORPG, Final Fantasy XIV). And, following the publication of those results, Eurogamer...
News Supply Chain Struggles Reported By Switch Manufacturing Partner
Nintendo has declined to comment
Hosiden Corp, an Osaka-based company responsible for assembling Nintendo Switch consoles, has withdrawn its projected sales forecast for the year and is citing difficulties with the procurement of important components as the reason. Bloomberg reported this withdrawal, which could potentially spell future troubles...
Random Elected Official In Japan Is Looking To Legally Preserve Games
And keep them playable for generations to come
A newly elected official in Japan has announced his intention to implement a legal framework to preserve games and keep them in a playable state. As reported by Automaton, Ken Akamatsu recently won a seat on Japan's House of Counsellors and is due to take office on July 26th. In a statement on Twitter...
Random Turns Out Elite Beat Agents Predicted 'Nintendo Pictures' Years Ago
The Agents were right on the money
Having acquired Dynamo Pictures — the production company behind the Pikmin Short Movies — Nintendo recently announced its intention to rebrand, with the studio formally becoming 'Nintendo Pictures Co., Ltd.'. While the name change will be a surprise to many, eagle-eyed fans of Elite Beat Agents may have seen...
News Nintendo To Acquire Dynamo Pictures, Will Rename It 'Nintendo Pictures'
Previously known for its work on the Pikmin Short Movies
Nintendo has entered an agreement to fully acquire the visual production company Dynamo Pictures, Inc., known previously for its work on the Pikmin Short Movies. Completion of the acquisition is expected to close on October 3rd, after which Dynamo Pictures will be known as 'Nintendo Pictures...
News Nintendo Formally Acknowledges Same-Sex Marriage, Despite Japanese Law
Enabling employees to "fully realize their talents"
Update: It has been highlighted that this particular addition to Nintendo's CSR first appeared when it was updated last year, and is therefore not a new addition to the document. We apologise for the error. Bearing in mind we haven't previously reported on it, we've decided to keep the story live...
News Devon Pritchard Becomes Nintendo Of America's Newest Executive
Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Communications
Nintendo of America has put out a press release via Business Wire naming Devon Pritchard as the company's Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Communications. Devon Pritchard, Executive Vice President of Sales, Marketing and Communications at Nintendo of America Since...
News GameStop Staff Layoffs Are Announced As Chief Financial Officer Leaves
In an aim to reduce costs
Reports have emerged that GameStop is replacing its Chief Financial Officer and will begin laying off "a number" of staff. In a memo acquired by Axios' Stephen Totilo, GameStop CEO Matt Furlong reportedly wrote that the layoffs are to allow the company to strive for "sustained profitability". Mike Recupero, current CFO,...
News Developers Don't Take Kindly To EA's Single-Player Gag On Twitter
Joining in on a meme
The new meme on the block has been making the rounds on Twitter recently, with everyone weighing in and joining in on the tag. Born out of a game on Tiktok, They're a 10 but is meant to be a lighthearted joke where you bring up one flaw about someone who is otherwise perfect. All in good faith of course — no one real! Gaming...
News Here's How Much Nintendo's Directors Made This Year
It's modest, but still a lot
Nintendo's executives are known for taken home fairly modest sums of money in comparison to their western counterparts. We reported last year that the top three directors at Nintendo - Shuntaro Furukawa, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Shinya Takahashi - between $1.75 - 3 million each when converted from yen to dollars. Compared...
