The Fall of Microsoft’s Game Business

MAY 16, 2016 • The recent news that Microsoft Corp. was shutting down its highly ambitious Project Spark game/service received only muted attention but it is a sign of how the company is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the game space. Project Spark was a virtual world building game along the lines of Minecraft. It was hampered by a clumsy freemium business model and never could gain much trac.....

PlayStation 4 Pulls Ahead

JAN. 25, 2016 • On January 5, Sony Computer Ent Inc. (SCEI) announced that cumulative PlayStation 4 hardware sales reached 35.9 million units worldwide as of the first of 2016. This number was remarkably close to the 36 million units DFC Intelligence forecasted for the PS4 in in our early 2015 .....

VR and eSports: Hype vs. Reality

For years DFC Intelligence has seen the hype and headlines that comes and goes around various segments in the game industry. In some cases, the market is excited by a new potential goldmine that turns out to be fool’s gold. Many times when a category reaches the headlines the opportunity has already come and gone. or often the excitement generated by a new category is premature. In these cases, investors rush in only to find out the consumer market was not ready.....

Rocket League Asks Can Free Work For Pay-to-Play?

DEC. 21, 2015 • Taking a page from the online promotion of ebooks, some independent game developers are testing whether giving away the full game free for a limited time can significantly boost the overall market share and sales of their titles. In the case of Rocket League by Psyonix Inc., the answer is affirmative. Valve Inc. has already shown that deep discounting games during its weekend sales can positively increase aware.....

The Truth About E3

JULY 13, 2015 • The Electronic Entertainment Expo last month was a chance for the largest game companies to show off their big new guns. Even as the game industry grows into new markets and platforms, E3 is a reminder that the biggest products.....