Game On: Europe game sales jump 3.4% in July

“Game On” is The Fly’s weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.

NEW RELEASES: This week’s major new release is “Black Myth: Wukong,” an action role-playing game from Chinese game maker Game Science. The title releases August 20 for PC and PlayStation 5 (SONY) with a port for Xbox Series X/S (MSFT) set to release at an unspecified date. Also out this week is Sony-published multiplayer shooter “Concord,” which launches for PC and PS5 on August 23.

EUROPE GAME SALES: 2.4M video game units were purchased in Europe during the month of July, a 3.4% increase over the same month last year, Gamesindustry.biz’s Christopher Dring (NTDOY) “Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD” at nine, the author says, noting that every other game was released before this year, including Electronic Arts’ (EA) “EA Sports FC 24,” which was in first. Other top sellers for the month in Europe were Take-Two’s (TTWO) “Grand Theft Auto V,” Bandai Namco’s (NCBDY) “Elden Ring,” “Red Dead Redemption 2,” Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) “Hogwarts Legacy,” and EA’s “Battlefield 5.”

‘FORTNITE’ ON IOS: Epic Games’ popular video game “Fortnite” is finally available on iOS (AAPL) again, just over four years after Apple took it off the App Store, though the game on iOS is only available in the European Union, The Verge’s Jay Peters (TCEHY), KKR (KKR), Disney (DIS), and Sony.

TENCENT/AAPLE TALKS: Last week, Tencent acknowledged it is in discussions with Apple on sharing the revenue from its WeChat mini games, Zheping Huang of Bloomberg reported. Tencent is exploring ways to offer in-app transactions via Apple’s iOS payment system, a change that would enable Apple to take a cut of the game transactions. Apple has begun ramping up pressure on Tencent and ByteDance to make fundamental changes to their popular apps and, in recent months, Apple demanded two companies to close loopholes that their in-app creators employ to funnel users to external payment systems, according to people familiar with the matter.

Click here to check out recent Media Buzz Sentiment on Tencent as measured by TipRanks.

MORE VIDEO GAME NEWS:

• Electronic Arts said that its upcoming role-playing game “Dragon Age: The Veilguard” will release October 31, 2024
• Microsoft’s Bethesda announced that mobile game “The Elder Scrolls: Castles” will launch globally on September 10
• Square Enix (SQNXF) said that 2023 PS5 exclusive “Final Fantasy XVI” will arrive on PC September 17