It’s time to take a look at another week in the world of gaming business, and this week saw PlayStation’s new CEO Hermen Hulst sharing some words about the company’s future, as well as a studio entering hibernation and more.
Here’s our roundup of what’s been happening on the business side of the gaming industry this week!
PlayStation’s new CEOs sets out the company’s approach
This week saw new PlayStation CEOs Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino talking all things PlayStation during the Sony Game and Network Services Business Segment presentation (which is, perhaps, not quite as sexy as yesterday’s State of Play).
During that presentation, Hulst and Nishino said that live-service PlayStation games will be released on PC simultaneously (like with Helldivers 2), but that “tentpole” single-player narrative games will still be on PlayStation first.
That meeting also revealed that the PS5 is Sony’s most profitable PlayStation console to date, and other exciting PlayStation tidbits as well. You can check out the supplementary material from the presentation here for more nerdy stats.
Wildermyth developer Worldwalker Games goes into “hibernation”
The developer of tactical RPG Wildermyth announced this week that with its work on the project complete, it will be going into “hibernation” for the foreseeable future.
According to a post on X (formerly Twitter), Worldwalker Games isn’t being shut down by external forces, and moving on after the completion of work on Wildermyth was “the plan” all along.
Support for the game will continue in the form of crucial updates and bug fixes, but it won’t be getting any more content.
Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games is facing layoffs
Earlier this month, reports emerged that Kerbal Space Program 2 developer Intercept Games would be closed down by its parent company Take-Two Interactive, although said company denied those rumors.
This week, however, several Intercept staff members (thanks, GamesIndustry.biz) shared that they would be looking for work soon, with senior design manager Quinn Duffy claiming the whole team at Intercept would be made redundant later in June.
If this is true, then technically speaking, Take-Two head Strauss Zelnick wasn’t lying when he said Intercept hadn’t been shut down earlier this month, although if he knew the studio would soon be shuttered, it’s not a great look.
ZeniMax is now included in Microsoft’s labor neutrality agreement with the CWA
In some more positive news, the CWA (Communications Workers of America) union announced this week that employees of Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax are now included in Microsoft’s labor neutrality agreement with the union.
The agreement was originally announced back in 2022, but it now includes ZeniMax workers, which gives said staffers the chance to engage with the collective bargaining process alongside their Microsoft colleagues.
CD Projekt releases its financials for the quarter
This week also saw the release of first-quarter financial information for Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 studio CD Projekt, and sales this quarter were up by 30% when compared to the same period a year ago.
This increase was driven in part by a 94% increase in sales for Cyberpunk 2077 and its Phantom Liberty expansion, although sales for games in The Witcher series fell by 41% compared to last year.
We also learned that the next major Witcher game has over 400 staffers working on it, and that no developers at CD Projekt Red are currently working on Cyberpunk 2077, suggesting that the studio is finally done with the game.
That’s it for our roundup of this week in gaming business! Join us again next week to find out what’s been going on in the industry.
