Opportunities Abound In Soaring Metaverse and Cloud Game Markets

Opportunities Abound In Soaring Metaverse and Cloud Game Markets

Quantifying the market potential for emerging areas like the metaverse, MILEs, VR and AR is a crucial but difficult challenge. It becomes a question of strike too early and go bankrupt or ignore the opportunity and miss out entirely. The good news is that many of these areas have been pioneered and many benchmarks indicate that there truly is gold in the hills. In December DFC Intelligence published a report on Cloud Gaming an.....
Microsoft Announces Plan to Buy Activision Blizzard

Microsoft Announces Plan to Buy Activision Blizzard

Today it was announced that Microsoft plans to acquire Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ: ATVI) for $68.7 billion. This is the largest video game deal ever and it will likely take some time to go through. Here are our initial thoughts. • Activision Blizzard was looking in a weak position with internal turmoil. The thinking was the company would need to be split up with Activision, Blizzard, King as three separate parts. It was hard to imagine any company willing to swallow the whole pill. .....
Take-Two Acquires Zynga in Major Move Into Mobile Games

Take-Two Acquires Zynga in Major Move Into Mobile Games

One week into 2022 we have our first major video game acquisition as Take-Two Interactive (NASDAQ: TTWO) intends to acquire mobile game publisher Zynga (NASDAQ: ZNGA). The acquisition will be another attempt by a console game publisher to enter the mobile game space. The big three North America console video game publishers, Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: EA), Activision Blizzard (NA.....
Consumer Interest In Xbox Still Behind PlayStation and Nintendo

Consumer Interest In Xbox Still Behind PlayStation and Nintendo

For several years DFC Intelligence has forecasted that PlayStation systems will continue to outperform Xbox systems by a significant margin. During 2021 there was some suggestion that interest in the Xbox Series X/S would increase with the Game Pass service and new exclusives like Halo Infinite and Forza Horizon 5. However, the latest DFC survey shows that consumers are still leaning heavily towards PlayStation and Nintendo systems. In a detailed survey conducted in October/November th.....
Latin American Market May be Key to Microsoft Xbox Success

Latin American Market May be Key to Microsoft Xbox Success

Latin America is a video game loving region that is home to over 660 million people.  Many observers assume the market is dominated by mobile games.  However, there is a vibrant core gamer segment in Latin America that is very interested in the latest console and PC games. The latest DFC Intelligence forecasts estimate that core console and PC games in Latin America are expected to grow fro.....
Why 3 Billion Video Game Players is a Meaningless Number

Why 3 Billion Video Game Players is a Meaningless Number

DFC Intelligence has often discussed how video games have become a truly global phenomenon with over three billion worldwide video game consumers.  Unfortunately, this is a fairly meaningless number that is used to justify unrealistic investments.  In most cases, the addressable market for a specific product or company is in the tens of millions or less. The top line number for DFC’s Video Game Con.....
E3 2021 Highlights Shift in Industry Strategy

E3 2021 Highlights Shift in Industry Strategy

Virtual E3 came and went without any major announcements.  However, the lack of news was itself newsworthy.  The E3 show highlighted how the console manufacturers have vastly different strategies going forward. The E3 show has always been primarily about the major console systems from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo.  In recent years, Sony has dropped out of E3 while Nintendo focuses primarily on its Nintendo Direct event.  So the real hope was that E3 week would spur.....
Western Game Companies Lead Record Growth In PC Games

Western Game Companies Lead Record Growth In PC Games

After several years of flat to stagnant growth the PC game market grew 19% in 2020 to reach $36 billion. While much of this growth was because of increased usage due to stay-at-home orders, there are encouraging long-term signs for PC games. The most notable trend in PC games is that Western publishers are now among the biggest players in terms of revenue. For many years, China and Asia in general have been the dominant players in the PC game space. Market growth slowed as much of the .....