Sony surges, Microsoft meanders and Nintendo nosedives

Weekly Roundup: Investors realise who really made Pokemon Go, Take-Two bosses talk indies and indies talk marketing as Q1 results emerge

Opinion by Rachel Weber Senior Editor

Published on July 29, 2016

Awkward. Just as Nintendo was enjoying basking in the glow of Niantic's Pokemon Go success it had to share those pesky financial results, showing its biggest biggest Q1 loss for five whole years. Worse, it released a statement reminding people that, um, actually it didn't own Pokemon Go, just a 32% share in The Pokémon Company.

"The Pokémon Company is going to receive a licensing fee as well as compensation for collaboration in the development and operations of the application," Nintendo said, and I'm imagining an executive mopping his brow at this point, perhaps wondering why he didn't just become a lawyer like his mother wanted.

"The Pokémon Company is [Nintendo's] affiliated company, accounted for by using the equity method. Because of this accounting scheme, the income reflected on [Nintendo's] consolidated business results is limited."

"The Pokémon Company is [Nintendo's] affiliated company, accounted for by using the equity method. Because of this accounting scheme, the income reflected on [Nintendo's] consolidated business results is limited."

Investors clearly were taken a little aback by the news and Nintendo's stock price dropped 18% in a single day (the maximum permitted), the equivalent of losing $6.7 billion in value in a single day. And Taylor Swift thought she was having a tough couple of weeks...

For more on this check out Rob Fahey's excellent editorial on the week of highs and lows for the Mario makers.

It being financial season, both Microsoft and Sony also announced their Q1 results, with the blue corner faring significantly better than the green. Not only did Sony's Game & Network Services arm announce a 126% increase in operating income, it also sold another 3.5 million PS4 units, shrugging off the fears that the impending Neo would put a halt to people buying the current model. Microsoft, however, experienced the exact opposite, with slowing hardware sales largely attributed to customers holding out for the Xbox One S.

Away from the Nintendo and Pokemon Go saga, Blue Isle Studios gave us an insight into an unusual marketing strategy - barely marketing your project at all.

"We didn't want to show something that was going to be cut from the game or something that would be misleading to people, so we basically waited until the game was essentially done 100 percent," said MD Alex Tintor.

"So we knew anything we showed would actually be in the game and we wouldn't be misrepresenting anything."

We also had an interview with someone from the opposite end of the AAA to indie scale, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive. He spoke candidly about the distillation of the AAA market and Take-Two's own plans for the independent scene.

"We do have an indie program. We haven't given it a name but we're working with some independent studios on some independent properties. We've doing it about a year. The way we tend to do things is we're quiet until we have something to talk about," he explains.

Finally, it was sad news for GSN Games this week, and our thoughts are with those affected by the staff cuts across its social casino studios. Veteran developer and the company's VP of creative Steve Meretzky is one of those leaving, and gave us a heartfelt statement on the matter.

""We do have an indie program. We haven't given it a name"

"I leave GSN's casino studio with mixed feelings," Meretzky told GamesIndustry.biz.

"On the one hand, these were some of the best people I've ever worked with, the company culture was top-notch, and management was quite decent. On the other hand, it was ultimately a disappointing time for me.

Elsewhere on GamesIndustry.biz this week:

Tom Kalinske takes chairman role at Marvel Heroes developer Gazillion

SpecialEffect's One Special Day raises over £90,000

Qualcomm settles class-action gender bias suit for $19.5 million

Gamer Network appoints Julia Loranger as West Coast Sales Director

The ESL talks regulation, responsibility and reaching the mainstream

Samsung Gear VR hits 1 million MAUs

In other news...

Kite & Lightning Raises $2.5m for 'Bebylon'

Dota 2: The International 2016 crowd-funded prize pool hits $18,477,010

Remedy is working on Crossfire 2

Capcom announces Q1 losses