The changing face of gaming
Game makers Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive saw their share prices fall by 13% and 10% respectively in early trading yesterday as they announced downbeat sales forecasts.
Activision Blizzard and Ubisoft also saw their share prices fall by 9% amid fears that online gaming is changing the playing field what with the continued success of games such as Epic Games’ Fortnite.
Although Take-Two’s chief exec batted away any such suggestion implying that it was just another game, it seems to me that the way people play games is changing in the same way that the way they consume media generally is changing – that is to say that they are increasingly interacting while they are on the move.
There also seems to be an increasing trend of people playing either with real or “virtual” friends which lends itself well to playing on mobile devices. I know that I keep banging on about them, but I think that when bendy phones come to market – Samsung has said that it aims to release such handsets this year – we will see another surge in online gaming as I would have thought that playability will be transformed with the doubling of screen sizes.
I think that established developers need to take note – and, interestingly, EA just released its own “battle royale” game this Monday to compete with the likes of Fortnite.
Tesla’s Model 3 price cut
I just also wanted to mention that Tesla announced that they are going to cut the price of a Model 3 by $1,100, bringing the price of its entry model down to $42,900, in its second price cut so far this year – and we’re only just into February!
The Model 3 is facing an effective price rise this year as the US government is starting to phase out a $7,500 tax credit for buying electric vehicles.
I think that this phasing out of the tax credit is a big deal for Tesla as vehicle sales are closely related to subsidies or lack thereof.
This comes at a tricky time for the company as it’s just axed 7% of its workforce and still has very ambitious production plans. Will Tesla be able to turn a profit before the money runs out??
