Microsoft Pulls A Wii U With Xbox One

JUNE 20, 2016 • The biggest E3 surprise of 2016 was clearly Microsoft Corp. announcing a new console system for release in holiday 2017. It was no surprise that Microsoft was working on something like what is now officially known as Project Scorpio. Rumors about such new hardware are always floating in the air and are what drive excitement in the game category. The surprise was that Microsoft ann.....

PlayStation 4 Tops 40 Million Sold

MAY 27, 2016 • As of May 22 the PlayStation 4 sales have reached 40 million units worldwide since November 2013. That total is up from the 35.9 million tally announced last January by Sony Interactive Entertainment LLC (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. For the 2014 fiscal year Sony said 18.8 million P.....

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 .....

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.....

Star Stable’s Big Ride

NOV. 10, 2015 • The last five years have seen enormous changes for MMORPGs. Most notably the subscription model has been supplanted by freemium monetization, while game design has moved away from open world exploration to more directed and defined mission activities. Bucking this trend is the privately held Star Stable Entertainment AB, based in Stockholm, Sweden. Star Stable Online is succeeding as a subscription MMORPG that .....