5/9/2011 - The Chinese computer manufacturer Lenovo Group has just unveiled a Kinect-like motion based control system called iSec. It does, similar to Kinect, capture hand and body movements by means of a camera which then migrates the data into the video game.  iSec is expected to become available during the second half of 2011. Lenovo is a China-based company with sales during the fiscal year ending March 2010 of US$16,6 billion. It is also a very rapidly growing company - Lenovo recorded for the six months ending September 30, 2010,  sales growth of 44.9%.

4/20/2011 - the Chinese online video game market continues to grow rapidly. This is how the numbers developed:

                      2008   $3.4 billion

                      2009   $4.0 billion

                      2010   $5.0 billion

                      2011   $6 0 billion  estimated

                      2012   $6.5 billion  estimated

                      2013   $7.2 billlion estimated

                      2013   $8.0 billion  estimated

This growth will inordinately beneft Blizzard with its World of Warcraft franchise distributed by NetEase, China's #2 video game company..

2/23/2011 - The German video game market, Europe's largest, ended 2010 with total software sales of Euro 1.56 billion on even keel after having declined by 4% during the the first half of the year. Pc Games did particularly well, having increased by 7%. Games for the major consoles - PS3, WII and XBox 360 performed satisfatorily in that these increased by 3% over 2009. Handheld games took a hammering - prices fell by 10% and unit sales by another 10%, total 22% down. Doiwnloads increased dramatically - these represented 4% of all games in 2009 and climbed to 7% in 2010.

2/15/2011 -China's second largest Online-Game developer, NetEase, has mpw received the approval from the Chinese Culture Ministry to sell the Blizzard game  „StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty“. It appears that they can begin doing so towards the end of the first quarter 2011.  

2/8/2011 - OnLive is moving into the limelight. Early January, Vizio announced that they would include the OnLive game streaming service into all of their 2011 HD TVs and Blue-Ray players. Today, HTC, Taiwan's leading smartphone provider, announced that they are buying 5.33 million shares in the company at a price of $7.50, making this a total investment of $40 million.

01/.3/2011 - The Chinese online gaming market continues to grow apace. In the fourht quarter it hit the Renminbi 9 billion number equivalent to $ 1.4 billion, up 24.7%. TenCent Holdings continued to dominate with a market share of 31%; NetEase, the licensee of World of Warcraft with 15.5% and Shanda with 12%.  

01/2/2011: These are the best-selling PS3 titles in Germany as of yesterday. Germany is Europe's largest video game market and the relative strength of Take Two is surprising.

12/07/2010 - NetEase has just overtaken Shanda for the second position after the market leader TenCent. NetEase did so on the strength of World of WarCraft 'Wrath of the Litch King".

11/11/2010 - Tencent, China's #1 video game company, continues to grow by leaps and bounds. For the September 2010 quarter they reported an astounding RMB 5,23 billion [US$ 780 million] sales result, up 55.1% compared to the same period last year. I think their #1 position in the Chinese market will continue to remain unchallenged.

8/13/2010 - The Chinese online game market continues to grow apace. In the second quarter 2010, it stood at $1.15 billion, up 26% from last year's $910 million.   Ten Cent successfully defended its #1 market share position of 27.6% whereas Shanda kept its #2 position of 16.8% and Net Ease clocked in at #3 at 14.8%. I would expect Net Ease to pull ahead of Shanda once the World of Warcraft "The Lich King" is released on August 18.

7/27/2010 - Following my heads-up below, the General Administriation of Press and Publication has now officially granted permission for the release of the "Wrath of the Lich King" effective August 18.

7/24/2010 - My friends in China now tell me that the Chinese Authorities [specifically the General Administration of Press and Publication] will grant Net-Ease the go-ahead to release the  “Wrath of the Lich King” expansion pack for the online game “World of Warcraft” effective late next month.

7/14/2010 - http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=fr-ca&from=truveo&vid=671f1fa4-759d-45e6-859a-d4fc4a93e407 - Business News Network Canada - What ails the video game console space?

7/5/2010 - China's third largest online-game company NetEase.com has managed a new record for its flagship game „Fantasy Westward Journey“ melden. According to them, 2,6 million gamers were online simultaneously which means that they beat their August 2009 when 2,56 milion users were logged on at the same time - as per JLM PacificEpoch.

Darüber hinaus hinaus plant NetEase.com einen weiteren Alpha-Test seines neuen Online-Spiels “Jingling Muchang” am 8. Juli, wie es heißt. (ami)

6/8/2010 - Shanda, China's second largest video game company, continues to take a beating. Their market share in MMOPS is dropping like a rock and now is at 14% versus Ten Cent's 27%. Net Ease is now #3 but expected to overtake Shanda sometime before end of this year.

4/21/2010 - The Chinese consumers are still waiting for the Lich King: China's third-largest Online Game distributor Net-Ease is still struggling to get permission from the Chinese authorities for the World of Warcraft game "Wrath of the Lich King". The latest is that the GAAP [General Administration of Press and Publication of China] has rejected Net Ease's application for the game. This rejection will be appealed but until this is resolved, the Chinese consumers better exercise patience. The game has been  on the market in North America and Europe since 2008. The final acceptance or rejection of the game in China will represent the difference of a so-so year and a terrible year for Activision.

2/24/2010 - The German video game market was slightly negative in 2009:

                                                                        2009                              2010

                          Software                             55.4 mio pcs                55.6 mio pcs

                          Consoles                              4.3 mio pcs                  4.6 mio pcs

However, Console games did extremely well and rose a stunning 22% in 2009. Conversely, mobile software and PC software got a hammering with minus 24% and minus 11% respectively.

2/8/2010 - What I reported on 1/18 below is now confirmed. Ten Cent has replaced Shanda as the market leader. Ten Cent had a market share of 24.1% in the fourth quarter; Shandea 20.1% and Net Ease 16.1. Total sales in the fourth quarter stood at $1.1 Billion, up 47.6% versus fourth quarter 2008.

01/19/2010 - http://video.msn.com/video.aspx?mkt=en-ca&from=truveo&vid=e2bc1b21-415d-4cae-afcd-9638eafb0cc1 - Interview at Canadian TV, Business News Network, on Video Game December sales and outlook for 2010 and 2011

01/18/2010 - the Chinese online game market continues to climb rapidly - to US$ 4 billion in 2009 and expected to grow at least 25% in 2010. There are now 70 million gamers in China and this number is expected to double in the next three years. At this point, TenCent

is now the market leader, followed by Shanda as #2 and NetEase as #3. Incidentally, NetEase is the Chinese distributor for World of Warcraft by Activision. The game has been blocked by the Chinese authorities since September last year since, as they claim, NetEase did not get the requisite authorizations when the rights to the title moved from The9, the old distributor, to NetEase. However, some of my Chinese friends tell me that approval is now likely to be forthcoming later this month. However, the spat between Google and the Chinese authorities could well result in a further delay in this approval.

Incidentally, there are any number of estimates as to how many internet users there are in China, ranging from 290 million to 400 million. The official figure is 384 million at the end of 2009, up 28.9% for the year.

11/18/2009 - Sony is revamping its advertising and gives it new focus. Sony spends about $5 billion a year on advertising. This massive campaign is about to undergo a fundamental change. Instead of spreading this budget over a vast array of products and brands, Sony has now decided to bring "shock and awe" to the consumer electronics field by focusing their spending  on a handful of flagship brands  with  budgets that guarantee exposure dominance. One of these is the PS3 and the campaign is expected to heavily rely on TV and online promotions. Product focus is not only the console itself but also high profile games such as Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, Drake's Fortune and others.

10/27/2009 -  Chinese online gamers have now waited for more than a year for the second major add-on for "World of Warcraft” - Wrath of the Lich King.  After a change in providers and a host of delays, the game should be up and running as of middle of November as per the Internet Portal Uuu9.com.

10/08/2009 - Is the Chinese online market undergoing a change in leadership? The Chinese online market is estimated at an annual $2.7 billion sales value. Of this, Shanda, the market leader holds about 19%  and its main competitor Tencent about 16%. Shanda's sales in the last quarter grew an astounding 54.6% to $157 million. However .................... two of its games account for 77% of the total and both games are quite old - Legend of Mir with 56% of the total was first introduced in 2001 and World of Legend, responsible for 21%, was released in 2003. Shanda's today has no games in the top ten of the online market and its active player population, estimated at 6 million,  is thought to be stagnant to slightly declining. Observers of the online video game scene think that Tencent is about to overtake the market leader. Tencent now has three games in the top ten [Cross Fire, QQ Dance and QQ Speed] and is estimated to grow at a 80% clip. Overall, if these trends continue, it is expected that Tencent will overtake Shanda within the next three months.

09/17/2009 - ToysRUs Germany has teamed up with 4u2Play, a internet provider of video games, in an effort to broaden its game offering and to strengthen its downloadable functionality. 4u2Play can now be accessed via the ToysRUs website www.toysrus.4u2play.de as well as on its own website https://www.4u2play.de.

08/15/2009 - BITKOM [German Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media] forecasts 1% growth in the German video game market for 2009 - to Euro 2.76 billion this year from Euro 2.73 billion last year [US$4.06  billion in 2009 at projected exchange rate of 1.474 versus US$3.84 billion at actual exchange rate of 1.4097 at December 31, 2008]. 

07/12/2009 - Netease disputed the figure given below. NetEase-Projektmanager Li Riqiang clarified that the yearly license fee for WoW for 2009 was $60 million and not one penny more.

05/26/2009 - WoW saga: Netease apparently paid Bizarre $565 million for the WoW rights in China. The9, who held the license before them, had sales from it per quarter of around $60 million with a market share of 7.5% last quarter. The problem is that The9 license expires on June 7 and the transfer to Netease, if the Chinese authorities work quickly, will take up to three months in which the game will not be available to Chinese gamers. Competitition is just waiting for this and I expect The9 with Atlantica, Shanda with Aion, and KingSoft with IXOnline3 to make the most of this vacuum. You can argue that Bizarre got its money and is hence in clover. Not really - Bizarre also gets a 10% royalty rate and thus stands to lose about $6 million during these three months of blackout. Also, the WoW extensions Lich King and Burning Crusade are also in limbo until they get their licenses which is not expected until September.

05/25/2009 - Shanda Interactive is planning of going public with its daughter Shanda Games Limited whilst hanging on to the majority of ownership. This move is designed to further strengthen Shanda's leading position in the Chinese gaming sector and to make acquisitions in it easier. First target for this strategy is said to be Gaming Portals 178. While not in the top 5 Chinese gaming companies, 178 would still be a very respectable addition to Shanda Games. 178's website now has about 128,000 daily unique visitors with an average of seven page views.

05/25/2009 - The WoW saga continues. The9 had sold playing rights to gamers for WoW and these rights, unless transferred to Netease, will expire at the end of this month. This is part of the negotiations ongoing between the two Chinese gaming giants and it is expected that a friendly resolution will be found and all license rights will be transferred to Netease no later than June 7. The continued reluctance from the side of the Chinese authorities to grant approval for Bizarre's "Wrath of Lich King" is expected to evaporate at about the same date.

05/12/2009 - A Chinese investor group, led by Joy Media Group founder Jacky Tung, has for a while been trying to buy Hurray Holding Co., the leading Chinese ringtone provider. He is now getting heavy-duty competition in that Shanda, China's market leader in online gaming, began talks a week ago with Mr. Songzuo Xiang, CEO of Hurray, with a view of acquiring 51% of Hurray's equity. This is, if successful, expected to  pave the way for Shanda to capture a large share of China's mobile gaming market. 

04/21/2009 - I said on 3/24/09 [below] that The9 was playing hardball. Since then, Bizarre has  given the rights for WoW to Netease.com - China's #2 MMORPs provider. Now, The9 is suing Bizarre for $100 million. Also, the Chinese Authorities [GAPP] continues to be very uncooperative in granting approval for Bizarre's "Wrath of the Lich King". Cause and effect?

04/06/2009 - PS3 is beating the WII in Japan. This is apparent from market research carried out by Enterbrain, the Japanese game data tracking service. According to them, Sony's PS3 sold in March 147,000 units in Japan whereas the WII moved only 99,000 units. This is the first time that Sony has clearly beaten Nintendo in this the world's second-largest video game market. Microsoft's XBox360 remains a very distant third in Japan - a position they have occupied ever since the other two competitors put in their first appearance.

03/31/2009 - Tencent anticipates that the Chinese MMORPG market will grow another 30% this year to somewhere north of RMB 26 billion or US$3.8 billion. Tencent also claims to have captured the #3 slot in the marketshare line-up in the fourth quarter with a market share of 15.8%. Industry insiders believe that Tencent has grown further in the first quarter of 2009 and now has a market share in excess of 20%.

03/24/2009 - Update to entry below - The9 is playing hardball.

They derive 90% of their income from the World Of Warcraft license and the agreement with Bizarre is coming to an end in June. The9 has for the past six months tried to get an extension of this agreement but Bizarre is strangely uncooperative - the fact that the game is only #3 in China versus being #1 worldwide may have something to do with this.

Now, equally strangely, the Chinese General Administration of Press and Publication [GAPP] is delaying approval for the Bizarre game "Wrath of the Lich King" as not being "in line with current regulations governing the category in the People's Republic of China".

03/23/2009 - Update to entry dated 01/02/2009 - The Chinese online game market [MMORPgs] grew by 61.9% in 2008 - from RNB 11.35 billion in 2007 to RNB 18.38 billion in 2008. If expressed in US Dollars, growth was even steeper as the RNB appreciated against the Dollar by 6.7% in the period. Current predictions are that the Chinese market will tripse to RNB 54,27 billion by 2011.

Current market leaders are Shanda, Netease, The 9, Giant Interaction Group, Tencent and Pefect World, pretty much in this order.

The most popular game is Westward Journey Online 2 by Netease whereas The World of Warcraft by Bizarre - the undisputed market leader worldwide and licensed in China to The 9 Group, only occupies the #3 position in China

02/10/2009 - Sohu, one of the largest Chinese internet companies, just reported record sales and earnings for the quarter and year ending December 31, 2008. The company posted total quarterly revenues of USD121.6 million, up 86% year-on-year, with advertising revenues contributing USD46.6 million — up 38% year-on-year — of that total. Online game revenues hit USD58.4 million, up 7% quarter-on-quarter. For the entire 2008 fiscal year, total revenue hit USD429.1 million; advertising revenues totaled USD175.9 million, up 48% year-on-year; and online game revenues were USD201.8 million. They also anticipate a very strong 2009 with online sales being driven by two new games to be released around middle of the year - Immortal Faith and Duke Of Mount Deer. The company is quoted on the Chinese stock exchange with 25% of its shares being owned by the founder, Charles Zhang

01/21/2009 - The German Video Game market is thriving. The software segment climbed in 2008 by 25.5% to Euro 695 million [$895 million]. In terms of units, the market grew by 16%. 

 01/02/2009 - The Chinese Video Game market grew in 2008 by an approximate 40% to a total of 54 billion Renminbi or about $8 billion. Consoles and Accessories account for nearly 30% of this number or about $2.2 billion. Boxed Software is worth about $1.1 billion - of which about $1 billion is pirated. Online game sales grew an astounding 50% to $2.2 billion, played by more than 40 million gamers, mainly massively multi-player online role playing games (MMORPGs), . Shanda Interactive Entertainment Limited is the dominating factor in this field with a market share of 18.3%.