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In This Edition,
Who will suffer most from GTA 6 launch?
EA set for World Cup victory
Summer Game Fest Play Days Interview
The process of making a game trailer
Plus, Switch 2 UK sales milestone and State of Play reaction
Hello there!
It’s Summer Game Fest week. And not only are we rushing around Los Angeles speaking to people, but we’re also running a sold-out live show on Monday.
So, you’d probably forgive us if we took it a bit easy with this edition. But not us. Oh no. In fact, we have four guests on the how today.
We’ve got Amanda White and Jon Gibson of Iam8bit discussing the SGF Play Days event, which starts on Saturday.
We’ve got Samantha Lester of ICHI Worldwide telling us all about building trailers for events like SGF.
And our guest host is analyst Piers Harding-Rolls from Ampere, who is sharing with us a whole load of exclusive data. His team has created a special report to coincide with The Game Business Live (that’s the live event I was talking about). The report launches tomorrow, but we’ve teased some of the headlines below, specifically around GTA 6 and the FIFA World Cup.
On top of that, we chat about PlayStation’s State of Play event, and reveal some exclusive figures around Nintendo Switch 2 in the UK.
What a treat! You can watch or listen to the Show above. And I’ve picked out some of the key headlines below.
Enjoy!
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is most ‘at risk’ from GTA 6 launch
New online games are likely to suffer the most at the hands of GTA 6 this November, says data firm Ampere.
According to its report Winning Attention & Defining Cultural Moments (which has been released to support The Game Business Live next week) GTA 6 is likely to impact all games, but will particularly appeal to players of shooters, sports games and sandbox titles.
Ampere analysed the performance of GTA 5 and GTA Online during December 2026, which saw a 29% jump in players following the release of its Safehouse In The Hills update. Of the 4.7 million new players to the game in December, 15.5% came from (and stopped playing) the newly released Battlefield 6, 12.3% came from Fortnite and the same number came from Call of Duty (including all COD games).
Another new live service game, Skate, also saw a large number of players leave to play GTA Online.
“This data suggests that newer releases were among the biggest losers when GTA 5/Online took off,” Ampere said. “Battlefield 6 had only launched two months prior, and Skate four months prior, meaning gamers had not had enough time to become deeply engaged, and we are likely to see a similar outcome around the launch of GTA 6.”
When it comes to genres, over 700,000 new GTA Online players were enticed away from shooters, 619,000 were coaxed away from sports games, while 622,000 arrived from the ‘other’ genre, which was primarily sandbox games.
Ampere boss Piers Harding-Rolls therefore expects Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 to face the toughest retention challenge when GTA 6 arrives. The shooter launches just four weeks before Rockstar’s game.
However, he notes that GTA Online has some of the weakest retention rates amongst the big live service games, which suggests there will be an opportunity to win back users further down the line.
Check out The Game Business tomorrow for the full report.
EA Sports FC set for World Cup boost… even without the FIFA licence
EA may not have the licence anymore, but an unofficial World Cup mode within EA Sports FC is expected to be the big winner of the upcoming tournament.
The FIFA 2026 World Cup takes place in the US this year, and it’s the largest one so far, with 104 matches planned.
FIFA and EA parted ways in 2022, with EA rebranding its popular FIFA games as EA Sports FC. This year, FIFA is partnering with various games, and has teamed up with Netflix for an official World Cup tie-in.
But EA is still planning to get involved with the newly announced ‘The World’s Game’ mode. The update may not carry the World Cup name, but it will include the official kits, crests and player likenesses of 41 of the 48 World Cup teams.
EA said that the 2022 World Cup in Qatar caused a 40% jump in FIFA 23 sale in the US. Meanwhile, Ampere says that global daily active users for that game increased 20% when the official World Cup 2022 mode was added, compared to the latest EA Sports FC 25 during a comparative period.
The US is the largest market for EA Sports FC in terms of monthly active users, but less than 6% of US players engage with the game, Ampere says. Therefore, with the World Cup taking place in the US, this represents a huge growth opportunity for EA.
“EA Sports FC’s scale means it will continue to gain the biggest upside from the FIFA World Cup even without the licence and the ability to add an official mode,” the data firm said.
The full data can be seen in the new report Winning Attention & Defining Cultural Moments, which is released to tie-in with The Game Business Live. The report launches Friday, June 5.
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Nintendo Switch 2 hits 1m UK sales
Nintendo Switch 2 has got off to a strong start in the UK, selling 1m units in one year – 30 weeks faster than its predecessor.
It’s the sixth fastest-selling home console in UK history, behind Wii and every PlayStation console except the PS1.
Nintendo’s position in the UK is weaker than other markets. Globally, Switch 1 is the second best-selling console of all time, but in the UK it currently trails PS2, Xbox 360, Wii and PS4 in terms of lifetime sales.
The average price of Switch 2 during its first 1m sales is £428, considerably cheaper than every console ahead of it except for the PlayStation 5, which had the average selling price of £442.
This year’s Summer Game Fest Play Days is ‘biggest yet’
A record number of media, creators and exhibitors will descend upon Summer Game Fest this weekend, claims Play Days organizer Iam8bit.
Play Days is the in-person media event that takes place in Los Angeles shortly after the Summer Game Fest showcase. It features upcoming games, developer access and media presentations.
The likes of Amazon, Annapurna, Atari, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, Capcom, Epic, NCSoft, Nintendo, Saber Interactive, Wizards of the Coast, Xbox and more are set to for the event.
It’s been a tough year for games media, with website closure and job cuts, but that’s not impacted attendee numbers, Iam8bit says.
“Our numbers are actually up from last year in terms of the number of media coming,” revealed Iam8bit co-founder Amanda White. “Also, our creator numbers have skyrocketed. They’re significantly higher than last year, which may in itself reflect how the journalism world is evolving.”
Fellow co-founder Jon Gibson added: “We love media and journalism, but it’s a creator’s world. It’s evolving in a wild and different way, and we’re certainly embracing it.”
Gibson says attendees can expect more experiential and social media-friendly activations at Play Days this year, and even teased the first ever “Summer Game Fest pool”.
Considering its growing popularity, we asked whether Play Days might consider moving venues in future years.
“We have contemplated the question you’re asking,” White said. “And we have some potential notions if the need arose and we needed three times the space or something. We do have ideas about how we might hold onto this intimate casual feeling, and take the event somewhere new. I won’t reveal where.”
Gibson added: “We chose this campus for a very particular reason, because there’s always been secret venues, and every year we activate more of them. So, it doesn’t feel like a larger footprint, but there’s more places to go.”
Check out our full interview with Iam8bit in today’s edition of The Game Business Show.
Meanwhile,
God of War and Marvel’s Wolverine headlined Sony’s State of Play on Tuesday. The digital event opened with Wolverine, an M-rated take on the character from Spider-Man developer Insomniac. It closed with God of War Laufey, a new take on the series starring Faye, the wife of traditional series lead Kratos. It’s being made by God of War developer Santa Monica Studio.
Other key announcements included horror sequel Until Dawn 2, the return of Stuntman in Stuntman Hollywood, a new Rayman title in Rayman Legends Retold, plus a plethora of release dates. Dune Awakening is coming to console September 22, Control Resonant is due September 24, Silent Hill Townfall is also September 24, Onimusha: Way of the Sword is September 25 and Ace Combat 8 is out October 2. Meanwhile, Phantom Blade Zero was delayed until October 29, and the Tomb Raider remake was pushed to February 27. For some reason, nobody picked a November date.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4 is launching on October 23, 2026 on Xbox Series X and S, PS5, PC and Nintendo Switch 2. It is not coming to PS4 or Xbox One, and will not launch in Xbox Game Pass on the day of release.
ESA’s 2026 Essential Facts About The US Video Game Industry reveals that the average age of US players is 37 (up from 36 in 2025), with half of all players aged 35 or older. 84% of kids aged five to 17 play video games, the same as in 2025, while 63% of adults play games, which is 3% higher than 2025. US Players spent 21% of their weekly screen time on games, averaging 12 hours a week.
Valve has significantly increased the price of its Steam Deck by over 40%. The 512GB OLED model is now $789/€779/ £669, and the 1TB model will cost $949/€919/£779. Previously, the 512GB OLED model was $549/£479, with the 1TB model coming in at $649/£569.
Xbox has delayed Fable to February 2027 due to the congested release window in 2026.
The Witcher 3, which first released in 2015, is getting a third major expansion called Song of the Past. It launches next year. Developer CD Projekt also revealed that the RPG has now sold 65 million copies worldwide. The Witcher 4 is currently deep in development.
007 First Light has sold 1.5 million copies in 24 hours.
Atari has acquired Crossy Road developer Hipster Whale for $29 million, potentially rising to $40 million. The company stated it will use the developer to expand its mobile development and publishing capabilities.
Rockstar employees have formed the Rockstar Game Workers Union, which operates as a subsidiary of the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain. The Union planned to launch last year after surpassing the 10% membership threshold, but that was delayed after Rockstar dismissed 30 employees for distributing confidential information in a public forum.
The California State Assembly has passed the Protect Our Games Act. Consumer movement Stop Killing Games celebrated the decision. The bill would require game companies to give players advanced notice before shutting down games that require a server and “provide a way to keep purchased games playable afterward, such as offline access, community servers, or another workable option.” The bill now heads to the California State Senate.
Integrated Media Company, the owners of GameSpot and Fandom, have agreed to acquire Balatro publisher Playstack. The UK firm’s current owner TruFin had been looking to sell its 84.5% stake in the business.
That’s all for today. On Monday, our paid-for Micro podcast will recap many of the big Summer Game Fest reveals. While on Tuesday we have an interview all about a big announcement taking place this week (but we can’t reveal more just yet).
Until then, thank you for reading.
