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 is Nintendo’s (NTDOY) “Pokemon Scarlet and Violet: The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero – The Indigo Disk,” the second downloadable expansion for 2022’s “Pokemon Scarlet and Violet.” The expansion releases December 14 exclusively on Switch.

GOOGLE/EPIC: The jury in Epic v. Google (GOOGL) has found that Google turned its Google Play app store and Google Play Billing service into an illegal monopoly, The Verge’s Sean Hollister (AAPL) and its App Store, as well as app stores on Android devices and gaming consoles.” Investors in Epic include Tencent (TCEHY), KKR (KKR), Disney (DIS), and Sony (SONY).

FTC/MICROSOFT: The U.S. Federal Trade Commission is trying once again to block Microsoft’s (MSFT) takeover of Activision Blizzard, which already closed two months ago, and contending that a federal judge wrongly allowed the deal to proceed, Reuters’ Diane Bartz reported last week. The commission is appealing the Northern District of California’s ruling that allowed the deal to move forward, claiming that the lower-court judge held the FTC to an unreasonable standard, the author noted.

Click here to check out recent Media Buzz Sentiment on Microsoft as measured by TipRanks.

U.K. NOVEMBER SALES: More than 4.55M video game units were sold in the U.K. last month, a decrease of 3% over the same period last year, Gamesindustry.biz’s Christopher Dring (EA) “EA Sports FC 24,” Warner Bros. Discovery’s (WBD) “Hogwarts Legacy,” Sony’s “Spider-Man 2,” and Nintendo’s “Super Mario Bros. Wonder.”

WOLFE INITIATIONS: Yesterday, Wolfe Research initiated coverage on a number of video game stocks, starting Sony and Take-Two (TTWO) at Outperform and Nintendo and Electronic Arts at Peer Perform. The firm was launching the sector at Overweight, saying innovation drives a generational expansion of time spent, commercial models, and value. Video games command a massive position at the innovative intersection of animation, interaction, social, and virtual, the firm said, adding that it’s “impressive” that decades-old video game incumbents continue to dominate most markets.

OTHER STORIES TO WATCH:

• The Entertainment Software Association announced that the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3, is not coming back (read more)
• Xbox CFO Tim Stuart said the company is weighing an ad tier for Game Pass, Kotaku reports (read more)
• Microsoft is converting a group of gaming subcontractors into union staff, Bloomberg reports (read more)
• Nintendo canceled Nintendo Live 2024 Tokyo amid threats to staff, IGN says (read more)
• MoffettNathanson initiated coverage of Nintendo with a Buy rating (read more)
• Take-Two was named a best idea for 2024 at TD Cowen (read more)