Embracer Group has released its financial results for the first quarter of its fiscal year, with net sales dropping 24% year-on-year to SEK 7.9 billion ($754 million).

There were also sales declines across its mobile, tabletop and entertainment divisions, but the company said these were in line with expectations due to a quieter release slate compared to the same quarter last year.

Most notably, PC and console games suffered a 34% decline due to comparisons with calendar Q2 2023, when Plaion released the best-selling Dead Island 2.

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The latest episode of The GamesIndustry.biz Microcast is now available to download.

This week, we continue our look at the latest financial results, with highlights from Warner Bros, Bandai Namco, Sega and Remedy. We dive a little deeper into Sony and the decline it faces in PS5 sales, as well as our conversation with Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick around the publisher's latest results and its future line-up.

We also discuss Krafton's acquisition of Tango Gameworks and the Hi-Fi Rush IP following closures at Xbox earlier this year, and we introduce a new segment, What do the numbers mean?, where we foolishly indulge Chris and his love of sales statistics.

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We all know, at this stage, that rumours of the death of the console were greatly exaggerated. This narrative took hold pretty strongly for about a decade, fuelled by the introduction of various smart devices – smartphones, smart TVs, and so on – and by some fairly optimistic notions about 5G and internet speeds in general.

The logic was simple; the world was filling up with devices that you could play games on, and with the potential for streaming games in ways that didn't require a device at all looming on the horizon, selling consumers an expensive, dedicated gaming console seemed like a tougher prospect with every passing day. Even as each successive generation of console hardware boomed, confident prophets told us that decline into irrelevance was inevitable for this sector.

Ultimately, those people who predicted the end of consoles were wrong (so far, at least) for a very simple reason: they didn't actually understand the appeal of consoles in the first place.

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Remedy has published its financial results for the first half of 2024, and reported an increase in revenue and "improved profitability" compared to the same period last year.

It also announced that, while Alan Wake 2 has yet to generate royalties, the game has recouped most of its development and marketing expenses since its release last October.

Q2 2024:

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Unity has released its financial results for the three months ended June 30, 2024, showing a decrease in revenue which "exceeded previous guidance" of between $420 million and $425 million for Q2.

It also announced the departure of CFO Luis Visoso, who joined the firm in 2021, and the appointment of current chief accounting officer Mark Barrysmith as interim CFO, followed by another two executive hires.

Create Solutions was the biggest revenue for Unity's business this quarter, which came primarily from game subscriptions (which grew 14%) and industries – the latter making up 18% of Create Solutions total revenue.

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Warner Bros' games revenue has declined 41% year-on-year, the company announced as part of its financial report for its Q2 2024, which is the three months ended June 30.

The company doesn't provide detailed figures within its Studios segment (which also encompasses TV and film), but said the decrease in games revenue was due to the "weak performance" of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, especially compared to the success of Hogwarts Legacy in 2023.

The segment's revenue as a whole was down 4% year-on-year to $2.45 billion.

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Bandai Namco has published its first quarter financial results, and has recorded a significant increase in both its net sales and profits.

For the three months ended June 30, 2024, net sales increased by 24.8% year-over-year to ¥280 billion ($1.9 billion), while profit rose by 56.3% to ¥34 billion ($233 million).

The publisher saw a boost in its digital entertainment sales, which increased by 55.8% to ¥106 billion ($725 million).

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Nintendo reported a significant decrease in sales and net profit for the first quarter of FY2025, in what marks the eighth year of the Nintendo Switch console.

The publisher saw decreases across all segments, which it attributed to Q1 2025 being relatively quiet in terms of releases compared to the same period last year, which saw the launch of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom.

For three months ended June 30, 2024:

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Roblox CFO Michael Guthrie is stepping down.

Guthrie – who has worked at Roblox since 2018 and played a key role in the company's stock market listing in 2021 – will stay on until a replacement is selected, after which he'll depart to spend more time on his personal interests.

For the three months ended June 30, 2024:

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Meta published its second quarter earnings today, and has recorded a loss of $4.5 billion in its AR/VR Reality Labs division.

This is the second reported loss of the year in this segment, with Reality Labs reporting a loss of $3.8 billion during its first quarter. Its Q2 revenue was up 28% year-over-year, largely driven by sales of Quest headsets.

Expenses in this segment increased 21% year-over-year to $4.8 billion due to "higher-headcount related expenses and Reality Labs inventory costs."

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Microsoft's results for the final quarter of its financial year are in, showing continued growth in overall gaming revenue while Xbox console sales once again decline.

The acquisition of Activision Blizzard was cited as a key factor in the growth recorded, with revenue from Call of Duty and the publisher's other properties now converted from third party to first party.

The growth of Xbox contributed to a solid year for Microsoft overall with total revenue from all of its businesses rising 15% year-on-year to nearly $65 billion.

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Electronic Arts published its financials results for the first quarter of FY2025. Despite a decline across key metrics, the company said results were above its expectations, and is looking ahead to a promising Q2 following the successful release of EA Sports College Football 25, among others.

For three months ended June 30, 2024:

EA's net bookings declined 20% compared to the same period in the previous year, mostly due to a drop in full game sales (down 58% year-on-year). Live services held steady in comparison, only dropping 7% compared to Q1 FY24.

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Capcom released its financial results for the first quarter of the financial year ending on March 31, 2025, with games sales dropping quite significantly compared to the same period the previous year.

But the publisher said in its presentation that "all business segments outperformed the company's plan."

For the three months ended June 30, 2024:

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As part of Hasbro's Q2 financial results, CEO Chris Cocks has expressed the company's commitment to focus on "digital play," mentioning a $125 million capital envelope for video games, and one to two new releases yearly from late 2025/early 2026.

In the Q&A portion of Hasbro's earnings call (as transcribed by Seeking Alpha), Cocks noted that the recent appointment of John Hight as president of Wizards of the Coast and Digital Gaming, as well as an increasing number of execs with video games background to the company's board, is in line with the company's strategy.

He mentioned the aim to expand some of its "mid-core and hard-core brands" and "digitise" them.

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Paradox Interactive's profits have significantly dropped by 90% following the cancellation of Life By You.

The publisher released its second quarter financial results on Thursday, in which it saw profits drop to SEK 28.9 million ($2.6 million) compared to SEK 292.9 million ($27.1 million) during the same period last year.

Write-downs of development costs for Life By You amounted to SEK 208 million ($19.2 million), which are included in the operating profits.

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Tech firm Improbable has posted its first full-year profit, recording £11 million in the black for 2023.

The company announced this news as it submitted its filing to Companies House yesterday, also reporting a 37% year-on-year increase in revenue to £66 million and a cash position of £185 million.

Improbable was founded in 2012 and originally focused on technology that could be used to create large-scale, persistent simulations for use in video games. In 2021, it shifted focus towards metaverse technologies, although some of its tools can still be used for games and virtual worlds.

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EA CEO Andrew Wilson has revealed plans to "harness the power" of its game communities and use advertising as a "meaningful driver of growth" for the company.

In EA's latest financial report, Wilson fielded comments from investors, advising that whilst the megacorp needs to be "very thoughtful about advertising", given "many, many billions of hours" are spent on its games, "advertising has an opportunity to be a meaningful driver of growth for [EA]".

"To answer your question on advertising broadly, again, I think it's still early on that front," Wilson said. "And we have looked over the course of our history to be very thoughtful about advertising in the context of our play experiences.

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