QUOTE | "This change will be enough to push the Xbox One installed base higher than PS4 in the U.S. and Canada in 2015." - IDC analyst Lewis Ward, commenting on Microsoft's decision to release a Kinect-less Xbox One for $399.
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week ...
QUOTE | "We expect it to become a major heavyweight of the industry." - Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, confirming that the company expects Watch Dogs to be one of the top selling games of 2014.
QUOTE | "We were doing Ferraris, very proud of the high quality product, and you get embedded in that type of thinking." - Stephane D'Astous, former general manager of Eidos Montreal, talking about his shift to making tablet games as COO of Hibernum.
STAT | 33 million – Number of copies of Grand Theft Auto V Take-Two sold-in to date; the publisher had record sales of $2.35 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, with profits of $361.7 million.
STAT | 74% – Percentage of gamers who prefer disc versions of games to digital downloads, according to NPD; their survey also said there are 34 million core gamers in the US who spend an average of 22 hours a week playing games.
QUOTE | “Taken as a whole the games industry is making mobile games that nobody cares about available to millions of players for nothing.” - Fireproof Games' Barry Meade weighing in on the problem with the free-to-play and the mobile games industry.
STAT | $9.5 billion – Amount of revenue Sony's Game division made in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2014; revenue was up 38%, but the division lost $78 million due to PS4 launch costs.
QUOTE | "If there's an opportunity to grow inorganically with a company that's consistent with our disciplined approach, then we would absolutely do so." - Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, essentially saying he's looking to buy a company or two.
STAT | $11.89 – Amount per user that mobile game Puzzle & Dragons makes, according to SuperData; this crushes the amounts earned by the #2 game Big Fish Casino ($2.07) and the #3 game, Clash of Clans ($1.31).
STAT | 17% – Amount US retail sales of video game hardware, software and accessories increased in April, up to $580.3 million, according to NPD; hardware sales rose 76% while software sales dropped 10%.
QUOTE | "There's such a variety of devices... that we can now imagine experiences for consumers throughout their day." - Phil Rogers, CEO of Square Enix in the Americas and Europe, talking about their strategy for making games.
STAT | 20% – Amount Ubisoft sales dropped for its fiscal year ended March 31, down to $1.38 billion; the company expects to turn things around with sales of $1.92 billion this year and a profit of $205.7 million.
STAT | $1.03 billion – Profit that Chinese online giant Tencent made in the first three months of this year, up 58%; this was on sales of $2.95 billion (an impressive 35% net margin), with the growth attributed to mobile games.