Activision – This earnings call focused on tempering expectations for the upcoming year. Though fiscally fine, Activision will be seeing more competition in the marketplace this year from Disney Infinity rivaling Skylanders Swap-Force and Deep Silver’s acquisition of Volition and Metro. With no major games out right now, the company is looking towards the future with Call of Duty: Ghosts, Skylanders Swap-Force, Bungie’s Destiny, and the (still) announced Blizzard MMO.
Capcom – They are afraid of the next generation of consoles. In their financial reporting, Capcom has suffered about a 17% loss from last year. This is blamed on the mediocre to solid game sales from titles like DmC, Resident Evil 6, and Dragon’s Dogma. They plan to shift towards more internal development (even though their outsourced projects have been succeeding) and only mentions two titles in the 2014 lineup: Lost Planet 3 and Monster Hunter 4. They also express trepidation about the rising cost of development that will ensue with the new consoles and stated many new business alliances and consolidation may occur. No mention of the jaw dropping Panta Rhei Engine they showed off at the PS4 event earlier this year. WTF Capcom.
No doubt there will be more financial reports dripping out, but I’m done poring over earning summaries; they are boring and hard to parse.
With not a lot of my time going towards gaming, what else have I been up to you ask? Well, I got married. This isn’t the forum to go into detail, so all I will say is things couldn’t have gone better and of course I’m the luckiest man alive to now be married to a beautiful lady who supports my nerdy pursuits. While I’m not playing games or getting married, I’ve had a chance to listen to a new podcast. Fatman on Batman is a Kevin Smith informal interview show. I’ve never cared for anything Kevin Smith but he does a decent job hosting. It’s not something I will subscribe to, but I recommend listening to his interview with Grant Morrison (who I adore after hearing him) and an other interview with Mark Hammel. I’ve also been trying to watch more movies. At least one film a week. The problem is I keep falling asleep. It took three tries to get through Special When Lit, a pinball documentary. It’s not bad, I’m just really sleepy. Face/Off and Chasing Amy I will never finish because they are boring.
By Griff Hoffmann