50 years ago, it was about cruise lines and hotels. Today it's about Play, Watch, Create, Connect around these massive online communities - Andrew Wilson, EA CEO

Hey there!

Probably the REAL breaking news of today is that I've just purchased my first-ever Game Pass to play Starfield. For many years, I've been exclusively a PlayStation gamer, but Starfield made me do it. So Phil Spencer’s strategy seems to work…

We also have other, not-so-important news, like the huge milestone Starfield has reached, or the 17 million pre-orders for Tom Clancy Rainbow Six Mobile, or maybe the 1 million sales Mortal Shell achieved…

Or that Nintendo Switch 2 was actually dev demoed at gamescom…

Oh, and did you know that Megan Fox is a vampire?

Let’s play!

Welcome to The Power-Up #9

Round-up of the day

🤯 Nintendo Switch 2 was indeed shown at Gamescom (in a previous edition of this newsletter we had a rumor published by Insider Gaming). The demo presentations occurred behind closed doors at the event, where participants were shown the enhanced capabilities of Nintendo's next console.

🚙 Pacific Drive creates a unique, immersive experience by using diegetic UI to deepen the player's emotional bond with their customizable car in a survival adventure setting.

✨ A really stellar start: Starfield exceeded 6 million concurrent players across all platforms, making it the biggest Bethesda game launch of all time, as announced by the official game Twitter account.

😱 Game development’s biggest issue is getting and retaining talent, according to a report from Perforce.

🎮 Starting in October, Steam will notify you if a game is compatible with DualSense or DualShock controllers. 27% of the 87M users utilize either one of the PS controllers.

🎵 TikTok wants to become mobile’s new launchpad, not a game platform in its own right, as people thought.

📈 Indie RPG Sea of Stars surpasses the studio's yearly sales expectations with over 250,000 units sold, even while available on PS Plus Extra and Xbox Game Pass.

🐢 Outright Games reveals a 2024 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game for consoles and PC, based on the TMNT: Mutant Mayhem movie.

📲 Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Mobile - Ubisoft's first AAA mobile game – already has 17 million pre-orders, according to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot on LinkedIn.

🎥 Annapurna Pictures' animation division is adapting BlueTwelve Studio's popular cat adventure game Stray into an animated film, following their recent release of DNEG Animation's Nimona.

Biz Reel

📎 EA CEO Andrew Wilson outlines a strategy for exponential growth, focusing on expanding major franchises like FIFA, The Sims, Apex Legends, and Battlefield into large online communities and ecosystems, akin to the Marvel and Star Wars universes.

📎 Soedesco acquires Bulgarian studio Kyodai, known for developing the 2019 sci-fi adventure, Elea, and recently working on Truck Driver: The American Dream. This acquisition solidifies a partnership between the two companies that began in 2017. The move aims to bolster Soedesco's development capabilities and uphold Kyodai's creative vision.

📎 There’s a rumour that Runescape developer Jagex may get sold off again.

📎 Atari acquired historian website AtariAge for an undisclosed amount.

📎 Also, Atari co-founder, Nolan Bushnell, announces education gaming startup ExoDexa.

📎 Britain’s large and mid-sized developers are booming, but it’s not entirely good news: 94% of the gaming studios that closed in 2022 and 2023 had 4 or fewer employees.

📎 Croatia’s gaming industry grew in 2022, with a net profit of €13.3 million.

📎 Formation Games expands its star-studded leadership team with industry veterans from Mediatonic, Channel 4, and Sport England, as it gears up to launch CLUB, its first mobile football "team ownership" game.

📎 Some executive moves: InnoGames (Forge of Empires) has named Christiane Gäb (ex - Techniker Krankenkasse, SGS ControllCo m.b.H) as its new Director of People and Culture. Pipeworks Studios has welcomed Kirstin Whittle (ex – Sumo Group, Keywords Studios) as their Vice President of business development and strategic partnerships.

📎 Mortal Shell achieves 1 million sales through strong community focus and innovative marketing strategies, says publisher Playstack.

📎 In case you didn’t think mobile puzzle games make money, they generated $42 billion in revenue, with swap games accounting for $25 billion. And they had more than 50 billion downloads. That’s coming from a report by Sensor Tower.

📎 Starting next month, Google will allow ads for NFT games, provided they don’t promote gambling content.

Game Central

🕹️ Blizzard plans to release annual expansions for Diablo 4 and is committed to developing the game for the long term.

🕹️ Tilting Point announces Cypher 007, a James Bond-themed top-down action game launching on Apple Arcade on September 29, featuring no microtransactions and various unlockables.

🕹️ EA Sports WRC is set to release on November 3, 2023, for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. The game features extensive stages and a wide range of rally cars and is developed by Codemasters, the team behind the DiRT Rally series.

🕹️ Respawn Entertainment releases patch 7 for Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, enhancing performance modes across platforms and enabling 60 FPS gameplay on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

🕹️ Funcom and Shiro Games announce that the RTS game Dune: Spice Wars will exit Early Access and officially launch on PC via Steam on September 14.

🕹️ Alone in the Dark reboot is delayed from October to January 16, not for polish but to avoid a crowded release schedule, THQ Nordic announced.

🕹️ Alan Wake 2 showcases 11 minutes of gameplay and it’s proper horror.

🕹️ Nitara is back in Mortal Kombat 1 and she is voiced by Megan Fox. “I grew up playing Mortal Kombat and I can’t believe that I’m voicing a character in the new game", Megan said.

🕹️ NBA 2K24 is launching today. The new ProPlay technology directly translates NBA footage into gameplay and delivers animations and movements via on-court NBA action. ProPlay is exclusive to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

That’s it for today. Thanks for reading. Stay powered-up until next time.

Bobby & Andrei

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