Seth Gilbert, 08-26-2007
From earnings announcements to press releases to interviews, they said it. Collected recent quips and clips from the executive suites On Gaming, On Mobile, On Internet Video, On Advertising and On Business:
“Video-game consumers are the single most sophisticated shoppers in the entertainment industry, despite their age and what you might think. People go to a movie or buy a book on a whim. But buying a video game is a much more methodical and judicious process. Next time you’re in an airport, look at how many magazines are dedicated to video games. And they’re not writing about the sex lives of game designers. They are writing about the content.” –Jeff Brown, vice president for corporate communications at Electronic Arts (New York Times)
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Seth Gilbert, 08-23-2007
Amidst continually bullish forecasts for the gaming industry, NPD Group released its monthly hardware U.S. sales data for June. Taking seasonal slowdown into account, the numbers were again incredibly strong, especially for Nintendo, which for the first time saw the Wii beat out even the portables as the top selling platform of the month.
For hardware, sales was up 77% over last year to $380.8m. Nintendo, attention to the user experience and efforts to reach out to new gamers again dominated both full–size and portable hardware categories. In Jul6, Nintendo sold 425k Wii units and 381.8k DS. . The numbers are particularly impressive considering the July include 4 weeks of data and the June numbers included 5. Readjusted for weeks, Nintendo sold about 106k Wii’s a week this month, last month they totaled about 76k.
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Seth Gilbert,
Over the years, Sony’s sometimes made it easy to question their strategies and management. Whether it’s been missteps with trying to market proprietary technology (Betamax, Memory Stick) or betting heavily on the future at the expense of the present (PS3 platform), the technology giant has made bold, and sometimes bad, decisions. One thing is clear, however, Sony’s ambitions are huge; especially when it comes to our living rooms. Sony wants to be a hub in the wheel of connected entertainment. And that’s never been more clear than today.
In Europe, Sony has unveiled a Playstation peripheral that is both TV Tuner and Digital Video Recorder. The device, called Play-TV brings an added set of features to the already powerful platform. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert,
There’s been a lot of activity on the financing front lately. With big deals like Metacafe’s $30m round, and smaller deals with celebrity investors like, Exabre (The Filter) some other smaller round deals haven’t gotten a lot of press. Two that were almost overlooked are game company Conduit Labs and discovery-agent software company uPlayMe
Conduit Labs:
Conduit Labs has raised $5.5m in a first round for an internet gaming site. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 08-16-2007
The news from MTV Networks (“MTVN”) is games, lots and lots of games. As part of a two year plan, reports are: the Viacom owned media network plans to invest more than $500m on games. The investment will emphasize casual gaming and will include both online, mobile and console based games.
Historically, dating back to Warner Communications purchase of Atari in 1976, big entertainment media companies have not been terribly successful at launching in-house game initiatives. History won’t deter MTVN. They, Disney, and other big media companies are anxious to cash in on the branding and revenue opportunities in the gaming industry. They are also loathsome to let independent publishers and startups steal all the thunder, and dollars.
MTV CEO Judy McGrath is hoping they’ll be able to expand some of their brands with game offerings. Network president Mika Salmi has said explicitly “games are critical.”
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Seth Gilbert,
Venture investors tend to move in swarms, feeding off the hot trend and collective buzz. Casual gaming remains the buzzword du jour in the gaming industry and therefore, not surprisingly,is also hot spot for funding activity.
Kongregate, a San Francisco based startup founded in 2006, is the latest to gain funding. The company has closed a $5m Series A financing led by Greylock.
The marketplace for Casual Games is not hot without reason. According to statistics from comScore, one in four Internet users worldwide, or a total of nearly 217 million people, play online games. Click to Read More
Seth Gilbert, 08-13-2007
Mark Twain once quipped "Facts are stubborn but statistics are more pliable." That may often be true. Surveys and their results can skew depending on what, or who, is asked. Still, for quickly digested factoids little wets the appetite better than a small taste of information. Today, in a revival of a prior series of consolidated statistical data, the lens turns to the gaming industry. Below is a sample of gaming industry related statistics and data points.
(Other Metue ‘By the Numbers’ pieces are linked at the bottom of this post).
One in four Internet users worldwide play online games, or a total of nearly 217 million people. Among online game sites, Yahoo was the biggest with about 53 million unique users in May, MSN Games was second with around 40 million (source: comScore). Click to Read More
