Blog: cross-entertainment strategy

Gaming has been mainstream for a while, but in recent years it has started flexing its cross-cultural muscles, intersecting with music, sports, and increasingly with video . The latest example is a new live-action movie, based on The Legend of Zelda games franchise, announced this week as a collaboration between Nintendo and Sony Pictures.

The covid pandemic and associated lockdown dynamic allowed entertainment consumption to reach new heights amongst a temporary surplus of free time. However, after restrictions eased, consumers found the constraints on their newfound time tighten, and had to make sacrifices, often preferring to return to real life activities at the expense of digital entertainment.

Call of Duty dropped the ‘Tracer Pack: Snoop Dogg Operator Bundle’, costing 2,400 COD Points ($19.99). It comes with Snoop’s playable skin, his own voice lines and progression path towards unlockable weapons and rewards including sprays, stickers, emblem, weapon charms and four operator outfits etc.

Music companies have begun to realise that as their industry has grown, it has also transferred much of its previous fan value into the subscription and song economy. The outbreak of COVID-19 and the subsequent halt of live music events (which, since the advent of streaming, became music’s key way of monetising fandom) increased the urgency with which monetising fandom in the digital era needs to be addressed by artists and their representatives.

Esports have been receiving much coverage in recent years – from sold-out arenas, through to record-breaking live streaming events, right up to the formation of news outlets which solely cover esports.

Over the last year we have written a number of times that Sony’s future is cross-entertainment , while Xbox’s future is cross platform . This stems from their respective strengths and weaknesses. Sony would find it, at best, incredibly challenging to compete with Microsoft on cloud, cross-platform, or the depth of its pockets.

Music consumption, particularly in the West, is commoditised. Transforming from the economies of ownership to access and the removal of production and distribution barriers led to the devaluation of, not necessarily ‘the song’, but of ‘ listening to a song’ .

It has been revealed that Disney will soon be premiering a scene from its upcoming The Rise of Skywalker film. What makes this a truly newsworthy story is that the event will take place inside Fortnite’s Risky Reels digital drive-in theatre, apparently with J.

Rovio has announced it is preparing for an IPO. It would be listed on Nasdaq Helsinki and it plans to issue €30 million worth of shares. Rovio’s announcement highlighted the recent growth of its monthly unique payers and average revenue per user.

Rovio reported its Q2 results this week. Total revenue was €86.2 million, a year-on-year (YoY) increase of 94%. While the majority of Rovio’s revenue was driven by games (€61.3 million, 65% YoY increase), its brand licensing revenue grew the fastest with a 242.