QUOTE | "There are a lot of ways you can mess up VR really easily." - nDreams' Patrick O'Luanaigh, talking about his studio's switch to virtual reality and how difficult it is to design good VR games.
Elsewhere in the business of video games this past week ...
QUOTE | "Japan is still stuck in the old brick-and-mortar business in a digital age. We hope to change the game by giving designers a different option." - Kevin Lim, founder of newly formed Inflexion Point Capital, talking about why they aim to invest $15 million in Japanese mobile games.
QUOTE | "We do not believe authenticity and compensation are mutually exclusive." - A company representative for 3BlackDot, responding to questions about paying YouTube stars for promoting games and other products."
QUOTE | "It was basically clear pretty quickly that the game was not going to make its money back as a premium game." - Get Set Games' co-founder Derek van Vliet, talking about how the company tried to switch from casual free-to-play games to premium.
QUOTE | "The difference is that the hits in free-to-play are making crazy amounts of money, and the premium hits in mobile aren't making crazy amounts." - Grand Cru CEO Markus Pasula, talking about why their Supernauts game is free-to-play.
STAT | 9.9 billion yen – Amount Nintendo lost last quarter ($96 million) compared to a profit last year of 8.6 billion yen ($83.8 million); the company also saw 3DS sales drop to 820,000 units from 1.4 million last year in the same quarter.
STAT | 96% – Amount that game revenue rose for Sony last quarter due mostly to strong PS4 sales; Sony's Games & Network Services division also posted a profit of $43 million versus last year's loss of $164 million in the same quarter.
STAT | 351 million – Number of page views that the top YouTuber, PewDiePie, got for his gaming channel last month; he now has 29 million subscribers, and made an estimated $4 million last year.
QUOTE | "We've literally had conversations with every publisher. So the fact that every publisher has an eye on eSports... says something." - ESL VP and former pro player Craig Levine, talking about how publishers are now building games with an eye for eSports.
QUOTE | "Console sales in Canada have never been stronger." - NPD Canada's David Ryce, talking about how PS4 and Xbox One have outsold their predecessors in Canada over their first eight months by 127%, with software sales up 102%.