What You Missed This Week in Video Games

“Game On” is The Fly’s weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.

NEW RELEASES: This week’s most notable release if Bandai Namco’s (NCBDY) “Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree,” a downloadble expansion for 2022 hit role-playing game “Elden Ring.” The expansion releases June 21, for PC, Xbox One (MSFT), Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4 (SONY), and PS5. Bandai Namco said last week that “Elden Ring” has sold 25M total units across all platforms since its release.

NINTENDO DIRECT: A little over a week after all the other Summer Game Fest showcases, Nintendo (NTDOY) hosted its online digital Nintendo Direct event on Tuesday. The presentation featured a broad variety of first-party games coming to the Nintendo Switch system in 2024 and 2025, including the first look at “Metroid Prime 4: Beyond,” out in 2025 and the reveal of “The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom,” which will release September 26, 2024. Nintendo also revealed “Mario & Luigi: Brothership,” a brand-new entry in the RPG adventure series starring the Mario Bros., launching Nov. 7, 2024; “Super Mario Party Jamboree,” launching October 17, 2024; and “Donkey Kong Country Returns HD,” and HD refresh of the original 2010 Wii title, launching January 16, 2025.

Meanwhile, Nintendo also showcased a number of notable upcoming Switch titles from third-party publishers. Of note, Square Enix’s (SQNXF) “Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake” will launch on November 14, 2024, with remakes of the first two “Dragon Quest” games set to release in 2025; Sony’s “LEGO Horizon Adventures,” the first Sony-published game on the Switch outside of the “MLB The Show” franchise, will release Holiday 2024; and Capcom’s (CCOEY) “Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics,” a collection of classic arcade fighting games, will launch later this year on Switch, PC, and PlayStation.

SGF WISHLISTING: Sony’s recently announced PlayStation 5 platformer “Astro Bot” appears to be the winner of this year’s summer games showcases, with the most wishlists of all the games shown and announced over the past couple of weeks, Gamesindustry.biz’s Christopher Dring (UBSFY) “Assassin’s Creed Shadows,” and Electronic Arts’ (EA) “Dragon Age: The Veilguard.” The Fly notes that while wishlists don’t guarantee purchases, they can be an indicator of heightened interest in upcoming titles.

OTHER STORIES TO WATCH:

• Xbox chief marketing officer Jerret West will leave Microsoft at the end of June to become the new CMO and market expansion head at Roblox (RBLX), The Verge reports (read more)
• Sony said the most downloaded game for PlayStation 5 on the PS Store for the month of May in the EU, U.S., and Canada was Microsoft’s “Sea of Thieves”(read more)