Business news Nintendo Switch, Blizzard… the business news of the week
Published on 01/01/2023 at 19:15
Sales figures, studio buyouts, financial statements, developer transfer window, investments… if these topics interest you, you’ve come to the right place. We offer you an update on the business news of the past week.
Summary
Nintendo would have considered releasing a “Pro” Switch, before canceling itNintendo Switch: here are the 30 best sellers of 2022 on the Japanese eShopA subsidiary of Blizzard, the Proletariat studio will form a syndicateOur other business articles of the week
Nintendo would have considered releasing a “Pro” Switch, before canceling it
In 2020 and 2021, many rumors surfaced about a “Pro” Switch, designed as a more powerful version of the current console that would thus support more demanding games. Nintendo finally settled for launching, in October 2021, an OLED Switch which embeds the same Nvidia Tegra X1 chip as the previous models. But if we believe John Lineman, editor and producer for the renowned tech site Digital Foundry, the Japanese firm had planned to give a boost to its console. “From what I understood from discussions with developers, some kind of mid-gen update was planned for the Switch. But it doesn’t seem that is no longer the case”, he explains answering a question from a user in a YouTube video.
With 114 million Switches sold since its release in March 2017, Nintendo does not seem to be in a hurry to put a successor on the market. Shuntaro Furukawa, CEO of the Japanese firm, said last February that the console was “just in the middle of its life cycle”. I have to say that post-Switch gen move is a ‘major concern’as Furukawa himself pointed out earlier this year.
“I think at Nintendo they’re pretty nervous about it, because previous transitions between console generations haven’t always gone well,” John Lineman recalls in the video. After the Nintendo 64 (32 million sold), the GameCube (21 million) had not met with the expected success. Then, the Wii (101 million) was a real hit, before another failure with the Wii U (13 million).
Nintendo Switch: here are the 30 best sellers of 2022 on the Japanese eShop
Nintendo has unveiled its traditional annual ranking of the best-selling games on the Japanese eShop. The Switch will have seen big launches in 2022, such as that of Splatoon 3 which we find in first place. Released in September, the colorful TPS sold 3.45 million copies in just three days in Japan alone. A record start for a Switch game, which Pokémon Violet and Scarlet surpassed in November with 4.05 million sales on the archipelago in three days also (10 million worldwide).
Number one last year, Monster Hunter Rise has not said its last word and signed a nice 5th place thanks to the release of its Sunbreak extension in June. Great performance also for Kirby and the Forgotten World, launched last March, which moved just behind in 6th place. Two other novelties of 2022 are present in the top 10: Nintendo Switch Sports is 7th, while Xenoblade Chronicles is in 10th position. Finally, it should be noted that with titles like Overcooked 2, Undertale, Human Fall Flat or even Inside, independent games are rather well represented in the complete ranking, which you can find below:
Splatoon 3Pokémon Legends ArceusPokémon VioletPokémon ÉcarlateMonster Hunter RiseKirby et le monde oubliéNintendo Switch SportsMario Kart 8 DeluxeOvercooked 2Xenoblade Chronicles 3Kirby’s Dream BuffetAmong UsSuper Smash Bros. UltimateAnimal Crossing New HorizonsThe Legend of Zelda Breath of the WildMinecraftHuman: Fall Flat51 Worldwide GamesMario Party SuperstarsMon-YueBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2022Together! The Battle CatsInsideMomotaro Dentetsu : Showa, Heisei, Reiwa mo Teiban!Dragon Quest X OfflineDragon Quest III : The Seeds of SalvationResident Evil 6Splatoon 2Unravel TwoUndertale
Subsidiary of Blizzard, the studio Proletariat will form a union
Unionism continues to grow in North America. Earlier this year, several gaming industry labor unions sprang up, including at Raven Software and Blizzard Albany. It is now the turn of the aptly named Proletariat studio, again a subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, to announce its project.
The employees of Proletariat created the Proletariat Workers Alliance, a union associated with the Communications Workers of America, one of the main professional unions in the United States (more than 700,000 union members). We are talking here about a group of 57 employees from all the teams of the studio, and not only QA testers as was the case at Raven Software for example.
“Everyone in the video game industry knows that Activision Blizzard has a reputation for creating a hostile work environment. So earlier this year, when we learned that Blizzard was planning to acquire Proletariat, we started to discuss how we could protect the super culture we have created here. By forming a union and negotiating a contract, we can ensure that we are able to continue to do our job in the best way and to create innovative experiences”, can we read in the press release of the union, which asks to be officially recognized by its management.
Founded in 2012 by former members of Zynga, Proletariat was acquired last July by Activision Blizzard. After designing original titles like Streamline and Spellbreak, the studio was absorbed by Blizzard to work on World of Warcraft and its recent expansion Dragonflight.
