Video Games Industry Finance Cheat Sheet: Summer 2026, 13/08/2026
Nintendo does tariff-icly, Xbox flops and Capcom cashes in 💵
This week’s Video Games Industry Memo is sponsored by Fifty
Media built around a deeper understanding of gamers
We run the rule over the latest batch of industry financial updates
Ukie gets upset over incoming easy-to-exit subscription rules
Madden NFL 27 kicks off the Saudi-era of EA in the week’s releases
Hello VGIM-ers,
It’s nice to be back on newsletter duties. Before we dive into the Big Read, I have a Big Announcement about VGIM’s gamescom plans: we’re going daily for the first time.
Yep, you heard it right. With the support of our friends at Fifty, VGIM will land in inboxes every morning from Monday to Friday throughout gamescom so you know exactly what’s going on in Cologne.
The daily will be shaped slightly differently from the usual weekly newsletter. There’ll be one big story, a second section full of quick news hits and a summary of the day ahead.
And while the newsletter will be free for all, Insiders will receive a special audio extra in every newsletter to give them even deeper insight from the show floor.
For now, there’s only one thing I need from you before the first daily: I want your tips for surviving gamescom.
If you have strong opinions on the perfect number of Kolsches to drink in a single sitting, which parties you should actually go to or the best place to get some vegetables during a meat-heavy conference, email me at george@videogamesindustrymemo.com.
The best advice will feature in the first daily on Monday 24th August in the quick hits section.
The big read - Video Games Industry Finance Cheat Sheet: Summer 2026
Paraphrasing Peter Parker: With great predictability comes some responsibility. The VGIM games industry finance cheat sheet returns for yet another edition, giving you a whistle-stop tour of the financial performance of some of the industry’s biggest publicly traded companies.
Good buy for now: This quarter’s edition begins with a brief farewell to Electronic Arts. I’ve written ad nauseam about how EA’s $55bn acquisition by the Public Investment Fund has handed the Saudi state a powerful soft power asset. Its purchase also deprives industry watchers of a regular look under the hood of one of the biggest live-service video game developers. Boo, hiss, etc.
Tariff error in your favour
Switched up and up: Anyway, it’s fair to say console companies have had an interesting time over the past three months. Nintendo had a bumper quarter, largely because they received a whopping refund from the US Government after the Supreme Court ruled that Donald Trump’s “liberation day” tariffs were illegal. Profits surged by 53.5% to $925m (¥147.4bn), after the company received its cash back from the US administration. A drop in year-on-year game sales despite decent sales figures for Starfox was offset by the Switch 2’s ongoing success, with the device selling 23.6m units in its first 13 months on the market. That’s a record for the company, making it the fastest-selling console in the company’s history.
Falling flat: Sony received a similarly welcome, albeit lesser, bump from tariff refunds. In the first quarter of its 2026 financial year, operating income from its game and network services division increased by $339.6m (¥54.1bn) to $1.27 billion (¥202bn) as the company received its first tranche of an estimated half-a-billion-dollar tariff refund. Sales, however, stayed flat, increasing just 0.06% year-on-year from $5.88bn (¥936.5bn) to $5.89bn (¥937.1bn). Executives will surely cross their fingers that the decrease in sales of third-party games and hardware due to the ongoing memory crisis may be rectified by the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI later this year.
Letting the side down: Once again, Microsoft’s flailing gaming division trails its console gaming rivals. Xbox reported a 10% year-on-year decline in its content and services revenue for the fourth quarter of its 2026 financial year. It also reported a 13% year-on-year drop in hardware revenues. When combined with impairment charges, Xbox was largely responsible for a 4% downturn in the company’s More Personal Computing segment. Given that the company’s overall revenue jumped by 18% to $90bn and net income grew by 31% to $35.8bn, Xbox’s struggles look increasingly awkward in the context of Microsoft’s wider success.
A message from our sponsor, Fifty: Better gaming media starts with a better understanding of who you are trying to reach. Fifty combines proprietary audience intelligence with specialist gaming media expertise to understand the communities behind the gamers, then turns that understanding into smarter media strategy, planning, activation and performance. From building pre-launch demand to driving installs and long-term growth, our media campaigns help gaming brands improve acquisition efficiency, maximise launch performance and build lasting player value. Explore Fifty for Gaming.
A mixed bunch
Spooking investors: Beyond Xbox’s struggles, Roblox was the other game business to suffer a wobbly quarter. The business reported that revenue grew 36% year-on-year to reach $1.5bn in Q2 2026. However, its daily active user count has continued to decline from its peak of 152 million in Q3 2025 to 123 million in the current quarter. Roblox also said that its 8% year-on-year growth in bookings to $1.55bn sat at the lower end of its expectations. It claimed that the underperformance was caused by its attempts to shift younger users away from “high monetising, 2025-vintage viral games” towards sustainable evergreen titles that monetise less effectively. Such long-term thinking has not been rewarded by the market, which currently values the company at 70% less than its 2025 peak.
Spin machine: One company finding some cheer amidst a lengthy period of gloom is Ubisoft. The company’s Q1 2026-2027 earnings report reads grimly, with net bookings down 9.2% to $295m (€256m) due to a comparatively strong performance in the comparable quarter last year. However, the company said that its results came in slightly above guidance due to strong performance of Invincible: Guarding the Globe. It also said that Q2 had started strongly with Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced shifting 3.5 million units within two weeks of its July launch. The company’s attempt to positively spin studio closures as “additional rightsizing” felt like an optimistic bridge too far.
Sell games, make money: Monster Hunter maker Capcom continued its generational run of financial success by recording another banging quarter, with net sales for the first quarter of its new financial year up 54.7% year-on-year to $430m (¥70.41bn) and operating profit up 66.9% year-over-year to $250m (¥41.05bn). Capcom’s success is a reminder that being successful in the games industry can sometimes be simple. The company has recorded another successful quarter because *checks notes* it has sold a lot of games. The company shifted 23.81m games this quarter versus 14.6m this time last year, with new IP Pragmata and Resident Evil: Requiem giving it a valuable boost.
The giant grows: China’s video game powerhouse continued its fine financial form this quarter. Tencent saw revenue across its business grow 11% to $30.3bn (RMB 204.8bn) for Q2 2026, with its profits increasing 13% year on year to $17.6bn (RMB 118.4bn). Games once again performed well. The company’s Value-Added Service (VAS) division, which includes its video games portfolio, saw revenue grow 8% to $14.59bn (RMB 98.4bn) for the quarter. Domestic game revenues grew by 17% with Delta Force, Valorant PC and Mobile and the newly released Roco Kingdom: World shining. International game revenue grew 4% on a constant currency basis, with strong performances from Wuthering Waves and Valorant PC balanced by a downturn in Supercell’s portfolio.
All bets on GTA VI
Predicting problems: So, what lies ahead for the rest of the year? There are a few things worth watching. Tariff refunds are likely to stay in the pockets of console manufacturers, but consumers in the US are trying to argue in the courts that they should get a cut of that money themselves. The memory crisis continues, forcing price hikes on consoles and PCs that could continue to depress market growth. Then there’s the Grand Theft Auto VI question. Take-Two once again delivered net bookings above the company’s guidance range for its first quarter of the financial year ($1.39bn). But its fortune, and much of the rest of the industry’s, relies on Rockstar’s latest crime caper blowing the financial doors off in November, capitalising on some of that sweet Netflix-powered excitement later this month. No pressure, lads.
Completely reassuring ending: For now, the most recent quarter shows an industry continuing to wobble its way through a major rebalancing of the global games industry, disruption in both development and sales due to the emergence of the AI economy, and greater-than-ever exposure to regulatory upheaval that affects the way people pay and play games. I’m sure those problems will all magically resolve themselves in the next quarter. *coughs*
News in brief
Exit subscription music (for a game): UK video games trade body Ukie has issued a statement expressing concern over the Government’s plans to bring ‘easy to exit’ rules for subscriptions forward. Number 10 has confirmed that new rules forcing businesses to provide clearer up-front information about subscriptions, regular reminders about their operation and easier exits from them will come into force in January 2027. Ukie has asked for “clarity and flexibility”, expressing fears that players could “consume content that far exceeds the value of the refund” if someone cancels a subscription early.
Political Game: German trade body Game has released a statement ahead of gamescom calling on German and European policymakers to support the sector more effectively. It argues that “Germany and Europe remain far too weak by international standards” to benefit from global growth in the games industry. It therefore argues for an “ambitious strategy” to support the sector, funding and tax reliefs across the business lifecycle, targeted regulation of the industry and effectively using games, their ideas and technologies for the benefit of society.
Adults only: Xbox has informed players that they will have to verify their age to play R18+ games on the Microsoft and Xbox stores in Australia. The company sent a notification to users informing them that they will need to prove they are over 18 via facial age estimation, credit card, or a government-issued ID to access adult games. One game they won’t be accessing in physical form is Halloween, which has been denied classification in the territory because of the “presence of a controlled substance” (likely to be weed) in the game.
False Start: Walmart has shuttered its video game media site Restart, less than two years after launch. The news was confirmed by the site’s News Editor, Imran Khan, and Editor-in-Chief, Brandy Bertheleson, who both revealed that their employment had ended. Overall, five journalists are believed to be affected by the shutdown.
Big Success: And finally, House House, the creators of Untitled Goose Game, has scored another feel-good hit with its co-operative game Big Walk. The game, which allows players to hang out and solve puzzles together in a proximity chat-powered landscape, has sold over a million copies in its first week on sale.
Moving on
Wrapping up Electronic Arts news, Cam Weber has been appointed President and Chief Studios Officer. David Tinson is now President and Chief Operating Officer at the PIF-owned publisher…Dan Lazarides has been appointed Chief Marketing Officer at Frontier Development…David Lilley has been promoted to Chief Commercial Officer at Kudos Games Services…Video game lover and VGIM enthusiast Simone Casadei Pastorino has been appointed Partner at public affairs firm Milltown Partners…And Kat May has become Senior Influencer Relations Manager at Secret Mode…
Jobs ahoy
Sony Interactive Entertainment is hiring a Senior Director, Growth Marketing in London…Discord has an interesting opening for a Commercial Policy Lead, Brand Safety & Malware in its San Francisco base…Into Games is recruiting an Influencer Marketing Coordinator – Indie Gaming to support its not-for-profit work…Activision Blizzard needs a Senior Director, Digital Marketing in its Santa Monica office…And Epic Games has resumed its search for an Influencer Marketing Director…
Events and conferences
Power Play promotional event, Edinburgh - 17th August
gamescom, Cologne - 26th-30th August
Nexus Games Conference, Dublin - 23rd-26th September
Melbourne International Games Week, Melbourne - 2nd-11th October
Games of the week
Pro Jank Footy - Bonkers but entertaining arcade spin on Aussie rules footy kicks its way onto all major platforms.
Madden NFL 27 - First major sporting release of EA’s Saudi Arabian era aims to score a touchdown.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Remastered - Bethesda’s classic fantasy RPG arrives on Nintendo Switch 2.
Before you go…
US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has praised the gamers for supposedly playing their part in filling an important skills gap in the country.
Duffy claimed that a Federal Aviation Administration campaign to recruit video game players as air traffic controllers had achieved “94% of its hiring goal”, recruiting 2000 staff in the process.
But are the new hires more Microsoft Flight Simulator than the 2009 mobile game Flight Control? Take a flight over the States soon to find out for yourself.
Keep up with VGIM: | Linkedin | Bluesky | Email | Power Play |