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Industry Q&A with Christopher Dring : Ask your questions before January 4th ! [CLOSED!]

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Lelouch0612

Lelouch0612

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Archivist Genius Staff
Hello everyone !


As part of our New Year plans, I am glad to announce that Christopher Dring will be our first guest in 2025 for our 3rd Industry Q&A edition!


christopherdring.jpg


This thread is the occasion for you to submit your questions until January 4th 23:59 CEST.

As usual, each member is allowed 2 questions, with at least one related to the UK or European market which are Chris's areas of expertise.
You can also touch on global industry trends, or ask about a platform holder's strategy but don't indulge into reveal timings speculation on either the rumored Xbox/PS5 handhelds or the Switch2.

Understandably, he probably won't be able to answer everything but there might be enough common themes to satisfy everyone!
 
Are we still receiving UK and European game sales data in 2025?

Why was the November report never delivered?

Thank you, Chris, for everything.
 
Hi Chris how do you feel about European countries' current ability to foster new independent studios' birth in the aftermath of persistent layoffs? Among others Rocksteady in the UK has faced layoffs in the past year on top of bleeding more talent according to reports. Do you think it's easy enough or is talent more likely to depart to work in bigger countries for the gaming market (namely the US and Canada)?

In that regard what's your outlook on the publishers based in Europe? To me it seems a fair ammount of them (Devolver, Ubisoft, Focus, 505) are currently struggling.
 
Hi Chris, we thank you for finding the time to answer our questions.

1) In terms of the console market, how has been the evolution in Eastern Europe, Türkiye and Northern Africa in the last ten years. What are the biggest headlines? Has anything struck you in particular ? I know it's not your area of expertise but I'd appreciate if you could comment on that.

2) did Brexit modify the addressable market in the UK for game consoles? Specifically, is the traditional 200 GBP to 400 GBP price range still attractive for those willing to invest in console gaming?

Again, thanks a lot.
 
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Hello Chris

What are the Asian F2P console/mobile games that performed best in Europe as a whole?

In terms of Nintendo how can they improve further in Europe with the Switch successor besides getting more major third party support?
Seems they hit a ceiling in some countries on the Switch with just their 1st Party and AA/indie lineup which is lacking most major third party releases & big f2p hits
 
What makes the UK games market different compared to the rest of Europe?
E.g. Microsoft's consoles sold better in UK.

Which European countries are currently major non-mobile game producers? Is it even possible to pin-point select countries, or is there a more or less even distribution?
 
That's great!

1) Which is a potential growing EU market in the next 5 years, based on tour expertise a sud data? Is it one if the big5, showing a very reliable globale awereness and spending habit toward the videogame industry, or there are emergent smaller countries, ready to jump more aggressively on the videogame wagon for their spare time/entertainment?

2) How have been received in the UK specifically the resurgeance of the Xbox360 thanks to Kinect, in its late phase of the life cycle? Bith within videogame journalist and global media?
 
Hello mr Dring thanks for coming and answering some questions, so I have 3 questions

1: What was the biggest surprise of the year, in term of sales in UK/EU

2: What's your opinion of the current state of the market, is it ok, good, slow or are we currently in the calm before the storm, when 2025 is going to be big for a lot of companies

other then that hope you a happy new year!!
 
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Steve said:
Hello mr Dring thanks for coming and answering some questions, so I have 3 questions

1: What was the biggest surprise of the year, in term of sales in UK/EU

2: What's your opinion of the current state of the market, is it ok, good, slow or are we currently in the calm before the storm, when 2025 is going to be big for a lot of companies

3: Do you think that Nintendo made a mistake with not revealing the Switch 2 this year and supposedly having an internal Delay, or do you think in the long run it was for the better? Since I for one think that a 2024 launch had a lot of going for it, with Nintendo basically having H2 of 2024 all for themselves, do you think they'll be some problem? when 2025 is super busy all year round?

other then that hope you a happy new year!!
Click to expand...
You're allowed two questions.
 
1. How do you think Sony can regain more momentum in Europe? The figures for the same period are lower and the gap to the PS4 also seems to be widening. Do you think GTA VI could help or just a price reduction? Deals seem to have a big impact in Europe.

2. Do you play video games yourself? If so, which games did you play last year? (Sorry if this is already known)
 
Hello Chris. Thanks for all these years and good luck with your new projects.

I see middle class games (again) in crisis for the last couple of years. How is the consolidation lf sales across a few publishers and IPs impacting European developers and publishers?

I am afraid the likes of Focus, 505, Plaion, kalypso, Dontnod, etc are in a very dangerous spot. Here in Spain we just had Tekila and Novarama closing down in less than a year. Do you have any numbers to support or fight back this feeling?
 
Hello Chris and thanks for doing this!

  1. Your departure from Gbiz is understandably casting doubts about the sales coverage of the UK and European market in 2025, a very crucial year with both the Nintendo Switch 2 and Grand Theft Auto VI coming out. Will you be able to cover theses markets like before in 2025?

  2. My second question is about the weakening of the retail network in the UK. I have lived in London and it is clearly more difficult to find a gaming store there compared to Paris or Madrid. It is playing a part in the UK's higher digital share than the rest of Western Europe. My question is the following: do you believe that this loss in retail presence is contributing to the struggles of a lot of Premium games in the UK? Have supermarkets completely left gaming behind, without any hope for a reversal, putting all the software competition in digital storefronts?
 
As someone without access to The Numbers™️, I always wonder how much popular sentiment aligns with market perception. In this specific case, I wonder about game subscription services; years ago they were touted as the future and purely additive, and nowadays the sentiment seems a lot more dour. Is this reflected at all on the other side of the curtain? Is it something developers talk about? Is it even something you can track at all with the data you have?

More generally, how do you feel these initiatives impacted the gaming landscape, and what do you make of their trajectory so far?

Thank you for your time.
 
Hello Chris, I have to say I'm rather eager for this to happen, but let me ask my questions here:

  1. the first question I have to ask is just as somebody who is in North America and doesn't get a whole lot of eyes in Britain. When it comes to the gaming market what are the distinctions between Britain, France and Germany?
  2. my second question is this: is there anything that you see in the British gaming market that is long-term? I mean a trend or through line that you see lasting more than 5 years.
I really appreciate you doing this, and honestly I am going to miss you. You and Brandon Sinclair were among my favorite at gameindustry.biz so it's sad to see the both of you go.
 
Hello Chris, thanks for all these years of amazing coverage almost weekly, it was greatly appreciated!

1) How close are Switch and PS4 lifetime sales in Europe?

2) How do you see the PS5 and Switch 2 competing in mainland Western Europe given it seems like NSW has really dominated there since 2019/2020?

Thanks, best of wishes in your future endeavours. Hope you stick around in the gaming business and reporting sales.
 
Hello Chris and thank you so much for your work over the years. There's one particular question I've always wondered about:

How strictly restricted are you in terms of what information you can and cannot share publicly? You're under some kind of NDA? Your company under some kind of NDA? Are you constrained primarily by your company's commercial interests or by contracts with publishers?
You and Mat can sometimes share a lot of interesting information, and sometimes you are very careful about what you report.
 
Hi Chris, thanks for agreeing to do this, and for sharing so many interesting factoids and numbers over the years!

My questions:

1. In terms of the hardware sales performance, how close is Xbox Series X|S to historic under performers such as Wii U/GameCube/Vita/Saturn in the European market?

2. Based on the available data for the European market, how comparable are the sales of Switch and PlayStation SKUs of third party releases when they launch on both platforms day and date?

Thanks again, and all the best for your new ventures this year!
 
Hi Chris, thanks for accepting to do this Q&A. My questions:

1. This year most of the coverage will probably be on the impact of Switch 2 on the market and the impact of GTA VI (if it doesn't get delayed). What are in your opinion other specific trends/development that deserve special attention, particularly in Europe?

2. Continental Europe was historically a PC strong market, with the last few year of Steam worldwide growth has the PC market increased it's marketshare in Europe too?
 
Cheers for doing this Chris.

Did the NES outsell the Master System in the UK during the time it was Nintendo's primary platform (IE before the launch of the SNES)? It seems to be almost accepted fact that the MS outsold the NES, but when I was young I remember that most places that sold games - argos, index, dixons, wh smiths, boots, future zone, etc - seemed to push the NES more and have more NES games on offer, which always gave me the perception that the NES was the bigger platform of the two. I also saw a report written in early 92 from Bandai that put the NES at 700K and the MS at 500K - but this is muddied by Bandai being Nintendo's exclusive UK distributor at the time, so they would have every reason to say the NES was outselling the MS even if it was not true.

Nintendo dropped the NES in terms of software support a lot harder then Sega did with the MS when their successors came out, so it wouldn't surprise me if the MS eventually outpaced the NES in the UK, but I'm more curious about how things stood at the end of '91 shortly before the SNES's arrival.
 
Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions.

What is your evaluation of the relative strength of each of the major 3 consoles (Switch, Playstation, Xbox) in Europe, and how do you think that will change over the next five years?

Over the years, we've been seeing less and less sales data being released to the public. Do you see this trend continuing?
 
Thanks for taking the time to answer IB's questions.

Do you have any information regarding PS2 total sales in Europe? I remember reading that when Sony reported its european numbers they combined the numbers with the SEA region

So, what console do you think sold best in Europe, PS2 or NDS?
 
Hi Chris,
1) More a personal anecdote so I don't expect it to closely align with reality. I was too young to really remember pre-2000s gaming in the UK, but whenever I've spoken to someone older about gaming in that period, the conversation is always dominated by PCs, Sega and eventually Sony. There's already a question about the NES here so I'll focus my question on a later generation - how'd the N64 do in the UK? With how relevant Rare was to that console's library (and how unashamedly British they were haha) I'm not sure whether there'd be any effect or not.
2) What's your favourite game sales success story of the last 10 years?
Thanks for all your work over the year Chris, I really appreciate all the details you've given us nerds over the years. Best of luck in the future.
 
1) Really sad to see you be let go by IGN after the acquisition. I published the data before but right now the majority of gaming media, especially US, is essentially owned by 3 Private Equity companies. I want to ask if this has changed or reinfoced your views on consolidation in the gaming industry. During the FTC v MSFT days, most of the gaming media seemingly supported mass publisher consolidation or at least did not speak about the incredibly bad downsides it could bring. Hollywood outlets like Deadline, Variety, Hollywood Reporter have no fear in talking about why consolidation is bad for creatives and workers and music outlets have no issue in deriding the Apple/Spotify monopoly and how it controls the wages in the industry, yet the gaming media seems to be wholly unaware or unwilling to directly confront its corportate overlords on mass acquisitions. Are you now seeing why the FTC had a point with the MSFT/ATVI acquisition?

2) I also want to highlight how important UK and EU GSD/GFK data is to the gaming industry and gaming consumers. It is the only major region (20-30% of sales) that is able to report clear hardware and software sales (incl. digital). NPD does not show us clear numbers, in either hardware or software. Japan does not give us digital data. China is pretty much a black box. Without GSD/GFK, the public would have no idea if a game has done well or not on consoles (Steam exposes its player numbers and daily rankings). I really hope you will be able to continue analysing this data in the public space.
Box office numbers are completely open. Spotify viewership numbers are completely open. Netflix viewership numbers are completely open. Gaming is the only entertainment industry of its size that intentionally hides its numbers to obfsucate the truth. Is it still possible for you to still give the public this data and what do you think of how open other industries are with their numbers versus gaming?
 
Thanks for doing this Chris! My two questions are:

1. How does Xbox Series hardware/software sales in continental Europe compare to how the Xbox One did?

2. Are there any European countries where Switch will outsell PS4?
 
Answers here!

Christopher Dring

Original Content  Thread 'Industry Q&A | Christopher Dring answers your questions'

Hello! What a delight to be here. Thank you for the invitation. Some lovely questions.

I do love market data and reporting on it. But I do consider myself a journalist, rather than an analyst. And the data isn't mine. So I'm sorry if I'm not quite as informative as Mat or Daniel. Anyway. Let's give this a go shall we!



Ronin asked:


Are we still receiving UK and European game sales data in 2025?


I suspect this question is going to come up a lot. I hope so. I don’t know what GI is planning to do, but I have approached GSD and GfK to request market data access so I can...
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