The video game sector in full euphoria

We knew that the video game sector had benefited from the crisis linked to the Covid epidemic. The latest results from industry giants have confirmed this observation, like the Japanese Nintendo, which published Thursday, August 6 a net profit of 106.5 billion yen (849 million euros) during the period April-June , or 6.4 times more than the previous year over the same period. The company’s turnover, meanwhile, more than doubled to 358.1 billion yen (2.86 billion euros) despite the health crisis.

The day before, the publisher Activision Blizzard, which has in its catalog successful titles such as “Call of Duty” or “Candy Crush” (via the publisher King acquired in 2015), had reported a figure of Quarterly business up 38% over one year, to $ 2 billion (1.7 billion euros), for a net profit of 580 million dollars (490 million euros), against 328 last year. The American company took the opportunity to revise upwards its forecasts for fiscal year 2020, with anticipated revenues at 7.3 billion dollars (6.1 billion euros), against 6.8 billion announced in May.

Elixir anti-confinement

The good results announced by Sony at the start of the week are also driven by the success of its video games branch, sales of which increased by 32.5% between April and June, to 3.66 billion euros. Finally, Ubisoft, weakened by the departure of executives following testimonies of sexual harassment, ended the first quarter of its 2020-2021 fiscal year with a 17.6% increase in its turnover, to 427.3 million. euros. “We achieved a record first quarter and clearly exceeded our expectations”, congratulated the group’s chief financial officer, Frédérick Duguet, on July 22nd.

The sector’s success is notably driven by the success of a few titles, starting with “Animal Crossing” on Nintendo, which seemed to play for many the role of elixir against confinement. The title surpassed 10 million sales in three months, reaching 22 million units sold since its launch in March. Everything suggests that the game could quickly dethrone “Mario Kart 8”, until then the best-selling game on the Switch console – with just under 27 million units sold.

“All populations have been affected, whether men or women, young or old. Video games have become much more widespread than they would have done in ordinary times ”, Charles Louis Planade, analyst

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