Do you think this game will ever come to america anytime soon? I have really been wanting to play it but it seems like such a hassle to even make an account to be able to download the game. They dont allow americans to sign up and play i guess. It looks like such a good call of duty game, i think Activision could be making a lot of money off of it releasing it in america. if thats what they are worried about even with it being free I dont know i just really want to play it.
submitted by | Listen up retards. Do you happen to feel regret because you always think “ohhh if I yoloed my savings on TSLA/AMD/NVDA 🚀 leaps years ago I could be rich by now!!!” Well if you didn't know already, it doesn’t really matter what happened in the past. Hindsight will always be 20/20. You shouldn’t be harsh on yourself on your past self that your past self wasn’t retarded enough to yolo their savings into AMD/TSLA/.... Your past self doesn’t have the same knowledge that your current self has. It’s fine. If you judged those stocks with the best DD you could do at the time and didn’t think they were worth it, then you did a good job. If you always think about what you could/should have done in the past, then you don't have the right attitude to play the stock market casino imho. The single most important thing is to be able to look ahead. There are always plenty of opportunities around. There are thousands of rockets that are still on earth right now. Some may depart this year, others will stay a little longer on earth. The true strength lies in being able to identify those rockets with the knowledge you have right now. And if you still miss most rockets that will take-off this year that's fine, maybe you'll learn, get better and you'll do better next year. Now, what if I told you there’s a big rocket that’s parked right right here on earth and it has decent chance for take-off this year? Maybe it won't quite reach the moon this year yet, but hey leaving the exosphere should already be a cool milestone. It has rock-solid fundamentals and will see lots of growth in the following years/decade. It’s a company that has the fundamental technology to power all the computer vision tech, which is bound to boom this decade. The company we’re talking about is of course Sony, and it is extremely undervalued right now. Its P/E is only 14. They have a P/S of 1.65, a PEG of 0.92 (< 2 is already somewhat exceptional for a company/conglomerate of Sony’s size, under 1 is a steal) Much lower than all of its same-sector peers. This indicates significant undervaluation. Next up Sony has a P/CF 13.2, ROE of 20% (S&P 500 average is 14% which would already be considered pretty good. 20% ROE is excellent), PEGY of 0.89, P/B of 2.65 and finally Sony has $41.6B in cash on hand. This makes Sony one of the cheapest tech/entertainment/EV/semiconductor growth stocks you will find on the market. (ROE of 20% + PEGY of 0.89 + PEG of 0.92 means this company is a growth stock based on the numbers alone, but we’ll dig into the actual company and overall outlook in a moment) I challenge all retards to find a company with similar benchmarks in one of the mentioned sectors, seriously. Quite frankly doing this DD honestly blew my mind. I kept looking everywhere for reasons why the company could be so undervalued and why they may struggle in the future. Very important to look at all the challenges the company faces to make sure I’m not just doing confirmation bias DD. But all I could find was the opposite. After several weeks and months of working on this DD, I can only conclude that it is overall a very solid company for a bargain price. The new CEO is taking the company in a great direction imho and I'm begin to think he could be Sony's Satya Nadella. So if you want some easy tendies, maybe consider $SNE while it is still cheap, I’d say. For the autists out there who care about analyst ratings, SONY ($SNE) currently has 18 BUY ratings, 2 OVERWEIGHT, 4 HOLD and 0 SELL. ( = analyst consensus is a STRONG BUY). Very little analysts cover this stock compared to other entertainment/tech companies, so this adds to my assertion that the stock is very much under the radar. Which means you have time to get in before it gets noticed by the larger investing world and before it starts to get a more fair valuation (P/E of around 30 would be more fair for this company I think, but still cheaper than many same sector peers). But, anyway the few analysts who do happen to cover this company are basically all saying it’s an instant-buy at its current price. Most boomer investors still think big Japanese tech companies are dinosaurs that have long been surpassed by China, South Korea and Apple etc ages ago. Young boomers may think Sony = PlayStation and that it's it. But the truth is that PlayStation, while very important (about 24% of Sony's total revenue last year), is a part of a larger story. Lots of investors in general associate Sony with the passé Japanese electronics companies from the 80’s and the 90’s. Just like a lot people may think BlackBerry is a struggling phone company. While Sony may not be the powerhouse in consumer electronics it was in the 80’s and the 90’s, in a lot of ways they are more relevant than ever before. Despite being a well-known brand and being known as the company behind PlayStation, for some reason its stock still seems to be under the radar among both retail and institutional investors. And boy, are they mind-blowingly undervalued. Even if a big part of its business would collapse tomorrow, they would still be slightly undervalued. And I am about to tell you why. (& btw compared to Japanese tech/entertainment stocks $SNE is still super cheap (Canon, Nikon, Toshiba, Sharp, Panasonic, Square Enix, Capcom, Nintendo, Fujitsu all have P/E ratios ranging from 18 to 77 and none of them have the combination of global clout, fundamentals & growth prospects that Sony has)) 2021 Sony as a corparation is not the fucking Sony from 2005-2015’s, just like BlackBerry in 2021 is not the fucking Blackberry from 2012. Just like Garmin in 2021 is not Garmin from 2011. Just like AMD in 2021 is not AMD from 2012. No, in 2021, Sony is the global leader in imaging technology and people do not fucking realize it. Sony has 50% marketshare in the CMOS image sensor market. There’s a very good chance the smartphone in your pocket has Sony image sensors (unless it’s a Samsung phone). Sony image sensors are powering a big part of today's vision/camera technology. And they will power even more of tomorrow's computer vision tech. In 2021, Sony is a behemoth in video games, music, anime, movies and TV show production. Sony is present in every segment of entertainment. Sony’s entertainment branches have been doing great business over the past 5 years, especially music and PlayStation. Additionally, Sony Pictures has completely turned around. In 2021, Sony is the world’s biggest music publisher (and second biggest music company overall). Music streaming has been a boon for Sony Music and will continue to be. In 2021, Sony is among the biggest mobile gaming companies in the world (yes, you read that right). And it’s mainly thanks to one game (Fate/Grand Order) that nets them over $1B revenue each year. One of the biggest mobile gaming companies + arguably biggest gaming brand in the world (PlayStation). In 2021, Sony is an EV company. They surprised the world when they revealed their “Vision-S” at CES 2020. At the reception was fantastic. It is seriously one of the best looking EV’s. They already sell sensors to Toyota. Sony will most like sell the Vision-S's tech to other car manufacturers (sensors for driving assistence / autonomous driving, LiDAR tech, infotainment system). 40 sensors in the Sony Vision-S Considering the overwhelmingly good reception of the Vision-S so far, I suspect the Vision-S could be another catalyst that will put Sony as a company on the radar of investors and consumers. We've seen insane investment hype for anything even remotely related to EV over the past year. We've seen a company that barely had a few EV design concepts (oh wait, they had a gravity-powered truck though) even get a $30B market cap at some point lmao. But somehow a profitable company ($SNE) that has an EV that you can actually drive, doesn't even have a fair valuation? In 2020’s Sony’s brand value is at their highest point since 12 years. In 2021, it is projected to be a its highest point since 2001 assuming same growth as average yearly growth from 2015 to 2020. Keep in mind brand valuation is a bit bullshitty as there’s no standardization to compare brands from different sectors, let alone non-consumer-facing brands with consumer-facing brands. But one thing we can note is that Sony both as B2C brand and as a B2B company is on a big upwards trend. https://interbrand.com/best-global-brands/sony/ https://careers.uw.edu/blog/2020/03/17/these-are-the-10-biggest-video-game-companies-in-north-america-shared-article-from-zippia/ In 2021, Sony is an entertainment behemoth. They have grown their entertainment branches by a huge amount over the past 5 to 10 years (they made some big acquisitions in the music space especially and they’re now also all-in in anime). I don’t think people realize how big Sony is as an entertainment company. I dug up the numbers and as of Q3 2020, PlayStation is the second biggest video game company in the world (Tencent is #1) in revenue (I suspect Sony might dethrone Tencent after Sony’s FY Q3 2020 is released). But Sony already comes very close to Tencent especially if you add Fate/Grand Order (which is under Sony Music and not under PlayStation) under PlayStation. There’s no single other company that has this unique combination of a dominant/important position in all entertainment segments. (video games + music + movies + TV series + anime + TV networks). I guess Tencent maybe? In 2021, Sony has amazing momentum in the camera space. If you’re familiar with the enthusiast photography space, you should know this. Basically, the market is slowly shifting from SLR to mirrorless cameras. This is because mirrorless cameras tend to smallelighter, have faster AF, better low light performance, better battery life and better video performance. Sony is the company that has been specializing in the development for mirrorless cameras for over a decade while Canon’s bread and butter has always been SLR cameras. Sony is in the lead when it comes to mirrorless cameras and that’s where the market is shifting towards. Because the advantages of mirrorless have become more and more apparent and Sony’s cameras have become technically superior, Sony has gained quite a bit of market share over Canon and Nikon in the last few years. In 2019, Sony overtook Nikon as the #2 camera manufacturer. Sony is in an upwards trend here. (they have the ambition to become the world’s #1 camera brand) Sony also has very good marketing for their cameras. (Sony has a lot of YouTubers / influencers / brand ambassadors for their cameras despite being a smaller brand than Canon) (just search on YouTube and/or Google “switching to Sony from Canon” just to give you an idea that they do have amazing brand momentum in the camera space. You won’t get as many hits for the opposite) A huge portion of Sony’s profit comes from image sensors in addition to music and video games. This is in addition to their highly profitable financial holdings division & their more moderately profitable electronics division. Sony’s electronics division, unlike other Japanese brands, has shown great resilience against the very strong competition from China & South Korea. They have been able to maintain their position in the audio space and as of 2020 are still the global market leader in high-end TV’s (a position they have been holding for decades) and it seems they will continue to be able to maintain that. But seriously this company is dirt-cheap compared to any of its peers in any segment and there’s various huge growth prospects for Sony: - CMOS image sensors & Sony’s overall imaging prowess will boom due to increased demand from automotive sector, security & surveillance industry, manufacturing industry, medical sector and finally from the aerospace & defence industry. On the longer term, image sensors will continue to boom due to increased demand for computer vision & AI + robotics. And for consumer electronics demand will remain very high obviously.
- Sony is aiming for 60% market share in the CMOS image sensor market by 2026. Biggest threat here is Samsung here who have recently started to aggressively invest in image sensors and are challenging Sony. Sony has technological lead + higher production capacity (and Sony will soon open a new plant in Nagasaki), so Sony should be able to hold off Samsung.
- The iPhone 12 Pro has 3 cameras + a lidar sensor. Apple now buys 3 image sensors (from Sony) + LiDAR sensor (from Sony) per iPhone 12 Pro they manufacture. Remember the iPhone X and iPhone XS? That one had “only” 2 rear cameras (with image sensos from Sony of course). Basically, Sony will be selling exponentially more image sensors as more smartphones get equipped with more and more cameras.
- Now think about how many image sensors Sony can sell to Apple if the iPhone 13 will have 5 cameras + LiDAR sensor (I mean the number of cameras on smartphones certainly won’t decrease)
- Gaming (PS5 hype, PSN game sales are booming, add-on content is booming, PS+ subscribers count is booming and finally PSNow & first-party games sales are trending upwards as well). Very consistent year-on-year profit & revenue growth here. They have a history of beating earnings expectations here. The number of PS+ subscribers went from 4M to 48M in just 6-7 years. Investors love to hype up recurring revenue and subscription services such as Disney+ and Netflix. Let’s apply the same logic to PS+? PS+ already has more subscribers than HBO Max in the USA.
- PlayStation (video games in general) has not even scratched the fucking surface. Most people who play video games now are millennials and kids. Do you think those millennials will stop playing video games when they grow older? No, of course not. Boomers today also still watch movies and TV. Those millennials have kids and those kids are now also playing video games. The kids of those kids will also play video games etc. Basically the total addressable audience for video games will by HUGE by the end of the decade (and the decades after that) because video games will have penetrated all age ranges of the population. Gaming is the fastest growing segment of the whole entertainment business. By a large margin. PlayStation is obviously in a great position here as you can guess from the PS5 hype, but more importantly imho, the growth of PS+ subscribers (currently a bit under 50 million) and PSN users (>100 million MAU) over the past 5 years shows that PlayStation is primed to profit from the audience growth.
- On top of that you have huge video game growth in the China where Sony & PlayStation is already much better established than Xbox (but still super small compared to mobile games and PC gaming in China). Within the console market, Xbox only competes with PlayStation in North America. In the rest of the world, PlayStation has an enormous lead over Xbox. Xbox is simply a lesser known and lesser desirable brand in the rest of the world
- Anime streaming (basically they have a monopoly already + vertical integration, it might still be somewhat niche right now, but it will be big within 5 years. Acquiring Crunchyroll was a very good move)
- Music streaming (no, they don’t have a music streaming service, but as music streaming grows, Sony Music also gets a piece of the growing pie through licensing/royalties, and they also still have a little 2.8% stake in Spotify)
- Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T and Disney are currently battling it out in the streaming wars. When there’s a war you have little chances of winning, you shouldn’t be the one waging the war. You should be the one selling the ammo. Basically Sony Pictures (tv shows + movies) is in that position. Sony Pictures can negotiate good prices for their content because Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T are thirsty for content and they all want their own exclusive content. Sony Pictures does not need to prop up their own streaming service just like Sony Music doesn’t need their own music streaming service when they can just license out their content and turn a profit. There will always be demand for TV & movies content, so Sony Pictures is well positioned is as an independent content provider. And while Apple, Amazon, Netflix, AT&T and Disney are battling it out on the forefront, Sony is quietly building their anime empire in the background. Genius business move from Sony here, seriously. They now have anime production & distribution.
- Netflix has 200M subscribers and they currently have a 250M market cap. Think about what Sony will have in 5 years? >30M Crunchyroll subscribers (assuming all anime will be consolidated into Crunhyroll) & >100M PS+ & PSNow subscribers? Anime and gaming is growing faster than movies and TV shows. (9% CAGR for anime, 12% CAGR for gaming vs. 5% CAGR for the whole movies & TV show entertainment segment which includes PVOD, SVOD, box office, TV etc etc). And gaming as a whole is MUCH bigger than SVOD streaming. Netflix gets 99% of their revenue & profit through subscriptions. For the whole Sony Group Corporation, their subscription services (games + anime) it’s currently only 4.5% of their total revenue. And somehow Sony currently has a meagre $128B market cap?
- PlayStation alone is bigger than Netflix in terms of operating profit. PlayStation has a MUCH higher profit margin than Netflix. For Q3 2020 Netflix posted $790M operating profit and PlayStation posted $988M operating profit. Revenue was was $6.44B for Netflix vs. $4.77B for PlayStation. (and btw Sony’s mobile gaming revenue (~$1B / year) is under Sony Music, it is not even in those PlayStation numbers!!!)
- Think about it. PlayStation alone posts bigger operating profit than Netflix (yes revenue is bit smaller, but it’s the operating profit that matters most). And gaming is growing faster than movies. And PlayStation is about 24% of Sony’s total revenue. And yet Netflix has a market cap that is equal to the double of Sony's market cap? Basically If you apply Netflix’ valuation to PlayStation then PlayStation alone should have a bigger market cap than Netflix' market cap.
PS+ growth and software digital ratio growth - Sony Vision-S & autonomous driving tech (selling sensors + infotainment system to other car manufacturers). Sony surprised everyone when they revealed their Sony Vision-S electric vehicle last year at CES 2020 (in-house design and made in cooperation with Magna Steyr). And it’s currently being tested on public roads. Over the past year we have seen absurdly big investment hype into anything even remotely related to EV’s (including a few questionable companies). We’ve even seen an EV company with a gravity-powered truck get a $30B market cap in June last year. Meanwhile Sony, out of nowhere, revealed what is arguably (subjectively) one of the best looking EV’s. It got very positive reception at CES 2020. An EV that you can actually drive. But somehow their stock is still dirt-cheap based on their current fundamentals alone? Yet some companies that had pretty much nothing but some EV design concepts got insane valuations purely due to hype?
- LTE chips for IoT & Industry 4.0 (Altair Semiconductors)
- Cross-media IP (The Last of Us show on HBO, Uncharted movie etc). Huge unrealized potential synergy here (it’s about to change). We have seen that it can turn out super well when you look at The Witcher, Sonic the Hedgehog and Detective Pikachu. When The Witcher released on Netflix, sales of The Witcher 3 significantly increased again. Imagine the same thing, but with Sony IP’s. Sony Pictures is currently working on 7 video game IP based TV shows and 3 movies. We know The Last of Us tv series is currently in production for HBO. And then the Uncharted is currently in post-production and scheduled to be released in July this year currently. If Uncharted turns out to be successful, it will mark a big, new milestone for Sony as an entertainment company imho.
- Aniplex (Sony Music Entertainment Japan subsidiary for anime production, distribution & mobile games) had a fantastic year in 2020. (more on this later) There is a lot of room for mobile games growth with Aniplex. Thanks to Aniplex, Sony might beat their earnings forecast.
- Drones. DJI just got put on Entity List in USA and Sony started developing drones for prosumer / professional a few years ago. Big opportunity for Sony here to take a bit from DJI’s dominance. It only makes sense for Sony to enter the drone market targeting the professional & prosumer video market, considering Sony’s established position in the professional audio/video/photography space
- Currently Sony also has several ventures & investments in AI & robotics
- Over the past decade, Sony has also carefully expanded into medical equipment tech & biotechnology. Worth noting that Sony also has an important 33% stake in M3 inc (a medical services through-the-internet company with a market cap of $65.5B) (= just their stake in M3 Inc is worth $22B alone, remember Sony, with their large, diversified revenue streams & assets only has a market cap of $128B?)
- Sony Pictures has a great upcoming movie slate (MCU Spider-Man, Uncharted, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Venom 2, Morbius, Spider-Verse sequel, Hotel Transylvania 4, Peter Rabbit 2, Vivo, The Nightingale). They will profit from the theatre reopening and covid recovery. They may even become more favourable among movie theatre chains because they won’t release their movies on the same day on streaming services like Warner (and yeah movie theatres are here to stay, at least for a while imho)
- All the above comes on top of established, mature markets (Financial Holdings & Electronic Products)
- Oh yeah, btw though TV’s are a cyclical and mature market and are not that important for Sony Group Corporation’s bottomline*, Sony TV’s will continue to do well for the following successive years: o 2020: continued pandemic boost
- 2020-2021: PS5 / Xbox Series X/S
- 2021 Summer Olympics (tv sales ALWAYS spike during the olympics) (& the effect is more pronounced for high-end TV’s, = good for Sony because Sony’s market share is concentrated in the high-end range (they are market leader in the high-end range)
- 2022 FIFA world cup (exact same thing as for the olympics)
- You could say it’s already priced in, but the stock is already ridiculously undervalued so idk…
You would think this company somehow has a bad outlook, but that could not be further from the true, let me explain and go over some of the different divisions and explain why they will moon: Sony Entertainment While Netflix, Disney, AT&T, Amazon, and Apple are waging the great streaming war, Sony has been quietly building its anime streaming empire over the past years. - Sony recently acquired Crunchyroll for $1.175B (it is a great deal for Sony imho and will immediately be more valuable under Sony. Considering the growing appetite for anime I honestly do not even understand why AT&T sold it, they could have integrated it with their other streaming service (HBO Max) but ok)
- With Crunchyroll Sony now has the following anime empire:
- Aniplex (anime production & distribution, subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan) F
- Funimation
- Manga Entertainment UK (production, licensing, and distribution, UK)
- Wakanam (licensing and distribution in Europe)
- AnimeLab (licensing and distribution in Australia & New Zealand)
- Crunchyroll (3 million paying subcribers, 90 million registered users and 50 million social media followers)
* Why anime matters: Anime growth “The global size is expected to reach USD 36.26 billion by 2025, registering a CAGR of 8.8% over the forecast period, according to a study conducted by Grand View Research, Inc. Growing popularity and sales of Japanese anime content across the globe apart from Japan is driving the growth” (tl;dr anime 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀, Sony is all in on anime and they have pretty much no competition) Anime is the fastest growing subsegment of movies/video entertainment worldwide. - Sony also has a partnership with Bilibili for anime distribution in China:
https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/201903/26/WS5c990d93a3104842260b2737.html - Bilibili already partnered with Sony Music Entertainment Japan to bring Aniplex’s hugely successful Aniplex’s Fate/Grand Order mobile game in China.
- Sony acquired a 5% stake in Bilibili for $400M in March 2020 (that 5% stake is now already worth $2.33B at Bilibili’s current share price ($BILI) and imho $BILI still has lots of upside potential considering it is the de facto video creation/sharing/viewing à la YouTube/Twitch for GenZ in China)
https://ir.bilibili.com/news-releases/news-release-details/bilibili-announces-equity-investment-sony Sony Music Entertainment Japan Aniplex - Sony Music (mobile games) generated $400M revenue from its mobile games in Q2 FY2020, published through Aniplex (Sony Music Entertainment Japan, “SMEJ”) subsidiary
- They are the publisher of Fate/Grand Order, one of the most profitable mobile video games of the past 5 years (has generated $4B in revenue (!!) by the end of 2019 and is still as popular as ever). Fate/Grand order is the 7th most profitable mobile game in revenue worldwide as of 2020 (!)
Fate/Grand Order #9 game by revenue last year as of Q3 2020 - Aniplex launched Disney: Twisted Wonderland in March this year. In Q3, it was the #10 most downloaded mobile game in Japan. (Aniplex now has two top ten games in Japan)
- Fate/Grand Order was the #2 most tweeted game in 2020 and #3 was Disney: Twisted Wonderland. You can see that Aniplex has two hugely successful mobile games. (we are talking close to $1B of revenue a year here). It is the #2 game in Japan by total revenue from Q1 2016 to Q3 2020 and the #9 game in worldwide revenue from Q1 2020 to Q3 2020.
Aniplex has two very popular mobile games - SMEJ earns about > $1B from mobile games in revenue from mobile games and there is still a lot of future growth potential here considering Japan’s mobile game market grew a whopping 32% yoy from Q3 2019 to Q3 2020.
- Aniplex recently co-distrubuted the movie Demon Slayer: Mugen Train in Japan in October 2020. It became the highest grossing film of all time in Japan with a total gross box office revenue of $380M. In the middle of a pandemic. It still needs to release in South Korea, China and USA where it will most likely do great as well.
Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) (Game & Netwerk Services business unit): - We all know 2020 was a huge year for video games with the stay-at-home pandemic boost. The whole video game sector brought in $180B of revenue in 2020, a whopping 20% increase yoy.
- But 2020 will not be just a one-off temporary exceptional year for video games. The video game market has a CAGR of 13% which means it will be worth $291B in 2027. Video games is by far the segment with the highest growth rate in the whole entertainment industry.
US video game market growth (worldwide growth has a 13% CAGR) PlayStation revenue and operating profit growth - PlayStation obviously has a huge piece of this pie and over the past years has seen consistent yoy revenue and profit growth. Think about it, for every FIFA/Call of Duty/Assassin’s Creed sold on PS4/PS5, Sony gets a 30% cut. There have been sold a billion PS4 games so far.
- 5 years ago 20 to 30% of PS4 games were purchased digitally. Flashforward to 2020 and it’s 60-75% and the digital ratio looks set to still increase a bit. This means higher profit margin for game publishers and for Sony at the expense of retailers
- SIE has seen huge success in its first-party games over the past 5 years. Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon: Zero Dawn, The Last of Us Part 2, Uncharted 4, Ghost of Tsushima, Days Gone, Ratchet & Clank have all been huge successes. This is really big and represents a big change compared to the previous generations where Sony never really hit it big as a games publisher even though most of their games were considered quality games.
- SIE is now not only a powerful platform holdeprovider, but also a very successful games publisher with popular IP’s (Uncharted, God of War, The Last of Us, Horizon, Ghost of Tsushima, Ratchet & Clank). This is an enormous asset, because firstly it increases the chances of success for cross-media opportunities (Sony Pictures can make TV shows and movies out of it to expand the popularity of those IP’s even more). And secondly, it is an obvious selling point for PS5. The more popular and bigger their exclusive content, the more they can draw people to their platform/service. This should increases PS5 total marketshare over its competitor.
- The hype for God of War: Ragnarok will be absolutely through the roof. Hype for Horizon: Forbidden West is also very good already (10 million yt views, 273K likes which is very good). Gran Turismo 7 and Ratchet & Clank will also do very well in 2021. (I suspect that GoW oand Horizon might be delayed to 2022)
- PS5 reception has been extremely good. Demand is through the roof as well all know. The only problem is that they cannot quite capitalize on the demand due to lack of supply, but overall, it is a very good thing that demand is very high, and that reception has been very positive. The challenge will primarily supply and production-related for the following 6 months and to be able to maintain brand momentum. Hopefully, they won’t push disappointed/inpatient customers to competitors.
- Considering there’s backwards compatibility from PS4 to PS5, users will want all their PSN content to transition with them as well, so I expect them to lose very little marketshare to Xbox. Also, I do not know if Americans realize it, but Xbox is not nearly as big as PlayStation in the rest of the world as it is in the USA. PlayStation just has global brand power that Xbox just doesn’t have, so Xbox isn’t much of threat at all I’d say. Where I live, in Belgium, In Europe everyone is talking about the PS5, nobody really seems to care about Xbox Series S/X that much. Comparing PlayStation to Xbox in terms of mindshare is like comparing Apple to Motorola (not meant to be a diss to Motorola, I have a Motorola phone myself, just saying that Xbox has significantly less mindshare / brand power in Europe).
- SIE is likely working on PSVR 2, this could be big.
- Sony has a small stake in Epic Games (1.4%) and they have a good business relationship with them, so this might also make them open to release first-party games on Epic Games Store after exclusivity period on PS5.
- Remember the Travis Scott concert in Fortnite? I believe that was one of the reasons why Sony invested in Epic Games. It serves as an example how music can sometimes converge with video games, and this can play to Sony’s strengths.
- PlayStation also has way superior presence in Asia compared to Xbox. Have been expanding into China as well. Another great opportunity for revenue growth.
- PS+ subscribers grew from 5.7 million by the end of 2013 to 46 million by October 30th, 2020. This is an average growth rate of 28% over the past 5 years. Considering most of the growth was early on, it will slow down, but I predict that they will have about 70 million PS+ subscribers by the end of 2023. This is huge and represents a stable, recurring source of income. Investors who keep hyping Netflix/Disney+ will love this, but it seems they have yet to discover $SNE.
- There is a reason why Amazon, Google, Nvidia have been aggressively investing in video games & games streaming. They know the business is huge and is about to get even bigger. But considering the established, loyal PlayStation userbase, the established global brand of PlayStation and the exclusive games, PlayStation should be able to easily standoff competition from Amazon, Google and Nvidia (GeForce Now) in the next few years. So far, Amazon’s venture into game development, publishing & streaming has completely failed. Stadia and GeForceNow seem to have a bit more success, but still relatively niche. Therefore, I think PlayStation is well-positioned to remain one of the leaders in the industry for the following decade.
I'll get to the other divisions later, I figured this is a good first step. But so far the tl;dr Image sensors: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 IoT/Industry 4.0 chipsets: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 PS5/PSN/PS+: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Online medical services (M3 inc.): 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Anime: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Fate/Grand Order: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Demon Slayer: Mugen Train 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Sony Music / music streaming (the performance of Sony Music’s in Sony’s business is seriously understated. The numbers speak for themselves): 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Sony Electronics 🚀 Sony Financial Holdings (very stable & profitable business, even managed to grow slightly during pandemic when most insurance companies performed more poorly): 🚀🚀🚀 Still have to cover Sony Pictures, but their upcoming movie slate looks pretty good honestly (Spider-Man sequel, Venom: Let There Be Darkness, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Uncharted, Morbius, Hotel Transylvania 4 so that's worth one rocket as well imho 🚀 tl;dr of tl;dr: 🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀🚀 Disclaimer: I am not a financial advisor. I am an idiot that's trying to understand why $SNE stock is so cheap. Positions: SNE 105C 21st January 22 submitted by Audacimmus to wallstreetbets [link] [comments] |
TLDR; EGLX.to is the single best pure-eSports play in the world.
Look I have an incredible track record of getting lucky picking stocks in the new reddit dominated market (
PLTR, U, AI, BB, etc) and I want to tell you all about my next big one: Enthusiast Gaming.
While our community has nearly quadrupled in size, I still believe
EGLX is one of the most underappreciated plays out there. Since writing my first DD on EGLX, a few things have transpired:
- The stock has gone up like 80%.
- EGLX signed a massive deal with Samsung and Samsung will be the official sponsor of their 7 eSports teams.
- EGLX has strengthened their balance sheet by $50M, taking care of the cash risk I identified in the original DD.
- The stock price has formed some significant resistance, and has a solid foundation above $6.
- Call of Duty has had their best year in franchise history, and was crowned the best selling game of 2020 -> Great news for a company who owns 1 of 12 professional COD esports licenses.
- One of EGLX's streamers, xQc, found his way to the top of WSB... indicating people on that forum follow EGLX, but they just don't know it yet.
- Their recent bought deal is set to conclude this week, and I am hoping for big news on their Nasdaq application to follow shortly thereafter.
- Last and probably least, I was personally right again and won big again, in both BB and GME. And yes I realized my gains in both. So for whatever it's worth, I have proven my track record again.
Get in before the Nasdaq listing if you like money.
Positions: I currently have 40% of my portfolio in Enthusiast Gaming. I hope the mods don't mind, but I wanted to repost this DD I wrote about a month ago, because it seems like none of the noobs know about the Enthusiast Gaming eSports revolution. So here it is below:
---------------------------------------------------------
LINK to original post - POSTED JAN 6TH 2020: Greetings friendos.
It's 12:20 AM where I live and since I can't sleep, I have decided to finally write a DD on Enthusiast Gaming that I have been thinking about for some time... EGLX is a stock that I believe can make you 5-20x gains in the next year. I have been watching this stock since like $1.50 during the darkest days of COVID, and I am kicking myself for not getting in until $4 just before Christmas. But I am now a proud shareholder preaching the gospel.
What the eff do I know?
For some background information on my own stock picking prowess and why my ideas might be worth considering, I previously wrote super early DD's on Palantir, Telos and C3ai before making money in all 3 of them. I have a large number of people who have sent me thank you messages on reddit for my DD's on those companies.
PLTR - I was in at 10.50 Telos - I was in at 20 C3ai - I was in at 95
As a final qualifying note, in addition to getting incredibly lucky at picking random stocks, I also work in the gaming and digital marketing spaces, and I believe that I am somewhat qualified to comment on the merits of an esports and influencer company such as EGLX.
Who the heck is Enthusiast Gaming?
Enthusiast Gaming is a giant network of websites, esports teams and streaming influencers in the gaming space. Actually, they proclaim to be the single largest esports platform in North America. As of yesterday, they have officially announced that all of their collective followings put them in the
top 100 web companies operating in America. Note, the only downside here is that they are getting that number from a huge number of mid sized platforms, not one single super popular site like twitch or youtube.
>Source:
https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/news/ Does anyone even watch video games?
Yes. They do and will continue to. Actually us North Americans are very late to the party. The League of Legends world championship is already as popular as the super bowl. These viewers are coming primarily from Asia.
>Facts:
https://dotesports.com/league-of-legends/news/league-of-legends-vs-superbowl-viewer-numbers Furthermore, the hyper focus on gaming as a cultural cornerstone is in fact coming to North America.
I hope you don't actually need convincing on this point, but here is a fact for you:
Prior to COVID, studies were already showed that over 90% of all children in America were gaming in some capacity.
>Source:
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/video-games-saints-or-psychopaths-082814#:~:text=More%20than%2090%20percent%20of%20American%20kids%20play%20video%20games,of%20Americans%20over%2050%20play.
Now for comparison, most of us now adults grew up while gaming became a thing. If you are a similar age to me, you know when we were growing up, it was like 20-40% of boys gamed, and maybe 1-5% of girls gamed. This dramatic cultural shift is staggering. Obviously, this trend has been solidified this year with COVID. These gamers will and are translating to not only playing, but also watching games. That's Amazon's Twitch platform is growing fast AF. Watching video games is big big big money.
>Twitch facts:
https://www.businessinsider.com/twitch-viewership-grows-faster-than-previously-forecast-2020-9#:~:text=That's%20a%2026.2%25%20increase%20from,gaming%20streams%20are%20gaining%20popularity.&text=We%20forecast%20that%20the%20number,next%20year%2C%20to%2044.0%20million.
Who are their competitors?
Actually this is where I think it gets particularly interesting. As a huge gamer and esports believer, I have been looking to find esports investments, but having a real hard time finding pure esports plays. There aren't many companies out there to invest in that are strictly set to capitalize on esports. Frankly, most of the stocks I have found are seemingly doing dick all. I would encourage you to google esports companies. You will mostly find a bunch of garbo sounding companies that are somehow valued at $25m-$50m market cap, but their websites are broken and aren't even up-to-date. Really the only "esports" companies to invest in are the tech majors like Microsoft, Amazon, or Facebook, and the video game companies like Sony, Nintendo, ATVI, EA etc. Sure these are all great companies, but none of them are strictly focused on esports and none of them are new or cheap enough to turn into a ten bagger.
*** IF YOU ARE SKIMMING, THIS NEXT ARTICLE IS IMPORTANT**\*
Forbes recently released a report on the top 10 most valuable esports companies. Obviously, EGLX is on the list, or I wouldn't be mentioning it. But get this, EGLX is not only the ONLY publicly listed company that forbes identified, but they also have the highest revenue by a long shot.
>SORCERY:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/christinasettimi/2020/12/05/the-most-valuable-esports-companies-2020/?sh=2e4769ae73d0 EGLX is honestly positioned as the supreme pure esports play in the world right now.
Who the hell is leading this little company?
Well my
number one most important metric when assessing a little random undiscovered company is who is captaining the ship? The best way to tell if a small cap stock is a scam or the real deal is to see who is involved. In fact, the biggest reason I chose to invest in the above mentioned companies was because of who was leading them (
PLTR = Theil, C3.ai = microsoft ties and the dude from oracle, Telos = a former US general)
Good news of course, EGLX has an A+ grade with leadership legitimacy.
Adrian Montgomery, the former CEO of the Aquilini Sports and Entertainment (AKA
THE VANCOUVER CANUCKS) is running EGLX. These guys are the real deal and they aren't fuckin about in some scam company. If they can run the Canucks, they can run an esports team.
But how do they profit?
EGLX does not own games or huge streaming platforms like twitch. So you may be wondering how they actually make money? INFLUENCER MARKETING. That's how. They are generating money through ad placements and influencer marketing on their huge platform. (And remember, they are in the top 100 US online companies in terms of reach.)
Facebook and Google are already soaking up ungodly amounts of money through online advertising and taking over the world. But paid ad placements only go so far. I don't know of a good source off hand, but I am telling you subjectively that influencer marketing is one of the "next big things". Companies are paying people with major social followings to review and talk about their shit. This is a very very big industry. I truly believe influencers are going to overtake hollywood and MSM. You shall see... No sources here. Pure opinion.
Is it actually making money?
Shit loads actually. This year EGLX is talking about increasing their total revenue from $9m last year to $120m this year for like a 1100% annual revenue increase. Obviously, if their proforma numbers turn out to be bogus the stock will collapse. But, referring to the fact that the owners of the Canucks are running this company, I am hoping we are not all being lied to and frauded out of our money.
https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/financial-statements/ How do you know I will make the tendies though?
***IF YOU ARE SKIMMING, ALSO READ THIS PART**\*
EGLX is currently trading at a $450m CAD or about $300M USD market cap. That is absolute peanuts compared to any other hype stock in the memesphere. With $120m annual revenue, that puts them at about a 3x price to sales ratio, which really isn't that bad at all for even a boring a blue chip. For a growth stock, it is extremely low.
But if you dig into their investor presentation, they are actually claiming they will raise their Revenue Per User from $0.40 to $3 in the next 2 years, or
a nearly 750% revenue increase, not accounting for growth in the size of their social reach. If you include reach growth, it could be nearly 10 times revenue growth. By that point, the current market cap would be a fraction of their annual sales.
This stock is absurdly undervalued if the promises being made by the leadership come true.
>Go look:
https://www.enthusiastgaming.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/EG-Presentation-November-2020-Nov-27.pdf Final Fun facts:
- They own the best Overwatch team.
- They own the Seattle Call of Duty team, which happens to be among the nerdiest cities in America.
- They claim to have the best Fortnite players, but idk that game is trash so I couldn't really say if it's true or not.
But wait there's more!
Saved the best info for last.
The stock tripled in the past month. Why?
Because EGLX is still only trading on the TSX and
they have applied to list on the US stock exchange.
They have appointed KPMG as the auditor for the application, and having nice big reputable firm involved certainly increases the odds it will get approved. Furthermore, I actually emailed their investor relations folks and asked when they expect to hit the US markets. Surprisingly, they responded and told me they expect their application to be approved Q1 2021.
Once this puppy hits wallstreet, I see it breaking $1B USD in no time, which would be a 3x return. $3B-$5B doesn't seem unreasonable if the current market insanity persists through 2021.
We have the opportunity to get in on this company before those darned Americans pump it to the moon.
CANADIANS HAVE THE UPPER HAND IN THE STONK MARKET FOR THE FIRST TIME IN OUR DAMN LIVES. TAKE ADVANTAGE OF IT.
--
PS: Risks. Risks. I think it's almost certain that these guys will issue more shares to raise some capital. They are kinda acting like the want to pump their own stock with unnecessary positive announcements, and honestly, they are pretty low on cash. Think they only have $9m on hand or something small like that. Too lazy to look it up again. Just watch out for dilution. My bet is that they will do it after listing on the US exchanges and mooning. But honestly I am not too worried in the long run because they need the cash to compete in this space. PSS: More risks. If the us exchange application gets denied it will be bad bad news for my TFSA. submitted by Smash Bros is truly an incredible celebration of gaming, and just in its playable characters represents a wide variety of genres, including 2D platformers (Mario, Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Kirby, Ice Climber, Sonic), 3D platformers (Mario and Sonic again, Banjo-Kazooie) action-adventure (The Legend of Zelda), Metroidvania (Metroid, Castlevania), Shoot’em up/rail shooter (Star Fox), RPGs (Pokémon, Earthbound, Xenoblade, Final Fantasy, persona, Dragon Quest), racing (F-Zero), turn-based strategy (Fire Emblem), 2D shooters (Kid Icarus, Mega Man), third-person shooters (Kid Icarus:Uprising, Splatoon), minigame collection/party game (WarioWare), real-time strategy (Pikmin), stealth (Metal Gear), life sim (Animal Crossing), sports (Punch-Out), maze games (Pac-Man) fighting games (Street Fighter, Fatal Fury, ARMS), beat’em ups (Bayonetta). Sandbox/survival (Minecraft), and other games with non-conventional genres (Game &Watch, ROB, Wii Fit, Duck Hunt).
Yet, there are still many genres that are completely, or almost completely absent, whether they are lacking in Nintendo’s catalog, or simply because they haven’t got a chance yet. So I thought I’d take a look at some of them and try to give a few examples of characters, first-or-third party, who could fill that hole. For third parties, I’ll try to find the franchise that is to its genre what Street Fighter is to fighting games, or Final Fantasy is to RPGs, since I feel for third parties Smash
usually goes with classic icons or games that have otherwise made a huge impact.
I’m also not saying any of these characters
are even remotely likely, or even that I want them, in fact many of them aren’t. I’m also not saying these are the only characters that could possibly represent their genres, these are just my thoughts. I’ll try to find other things each characters have going for them, though. And hey, this could get you thinking about characters you didn’t know you wanted.
This list also includes some genres that are technically represented, but I feel not satisfactorily. Mostly those who are only represented as spin-offs from a franchise of different genre. You’ll see what I mean.
Puzzle games Here’s an example. Yes, we do have Dr. Mario, but that’s just a Mario spin-off. 90% of Doc’s moveset is still taken from the platformer games. There isn’t even a Dr. Mario stage! So, if we wanted to include a
pure puzzle IP, which could it be?
Well, for the Nintendo side, I think the best choice would be Lip from Panel de Pon, also known as Puzzle League. PL was a mainstay of Nintendo consoles for a long time, and was the premier first-party puzzler, and there’s still a lot of fondness for it now. References to it abound in the Smash series since Melee. Unfortunately, Lip is basically non-existent outside of Japan. NoA deemed the original too girly, so changed the games to feature more MANLY IPs like Yoshi. After a while even Japan stopped putting Lip in the games, and there hasn’t been a new full PL game since 2007. It did receive sort of a resurgence last year as Nintendo released the Japanese original worldwide through NSO.
Aside from Lip, there are several more recent Nintendo puzzlers that could get a rep. The Brain Age series is undoubtedly important and used to be huge. You could make the argument that it, not PL, is Nintendo’s premier puzzle series, and it is even still going. But its protagonist, Dr. Kawashima is already an At. Mallow from the Pushmo series and Box-Boy from the eponymous series are both acclaimed and popular with four games each. More recently yet are Snip and Clip, the stars of Snipperclips.
Now for the third-party side, the undeniable king of puzzle games is Tetris. Problem is, Tetris doesn’t have characters. I’ve seen people suggest a literal Tetris block as a character, and at this point, I wouldn’t put it past Sakurai, but for the sake of argument, let's keep looking. The other most iconic puzzle game series might be PopCap’s Bejeweled series, but that suffers from the same problem (Colorful gems for Smash?). Looking further still we have Sega’s Puyo Puyo series, which is very popular in Japan, and has been around since the early 90s. This series actually has identifiable characters, such as protagonist Arle Nadja.
Puzzle games aren’t just about matching 3, though. They come in a variety of formats. Usually they are quick and bite-sized, which makes them perfect for mobile, and the most iconic mobile puzzler (Other than Bejeweled-but-with-candy) is Angry Birds and the main bird Red could be a great mobile rep.
TLDR: First-party: Lip (Puzzle League), Dr. kawashima (Brain Age), Mallow (Pushmo), Box-Boy, Snip and Clip
Third-party: Tetris Block (?), Arle Nadja (Puyo Puyo), Red (Angry Birds)
First-person shooter Again, yes, we do have Metroid Prime reps in the game, but that is a spin-off of a non-FPS franchise. And there is debate over whether it is an FPS or an action-adventure game (I mean, it can be both, but whatever). If we wanted a
pure FPS rep who would it be? Nintendo doesn’t really have its own FPS series, so let’s just skip to third-party.
There are two series that I think can be called the most iconic FPSs. The first is DOOM, represented by Doom Slayer, so influential to the genre they were at one point called Doom clones. The series dates back from 1993 and is still going strong with popular acclaimed releases. The series has a great presence in Nintendo consoles and is a popular request. Unfortunately, it’s not very popular in Japan. The other is Halo, represented by Master Chief, the Xbox’s flagship series and one that redefined FPSs away from Doom clones. Both characters are owned by Microsoft now, but they wouldn’t be the first or second Microsoft-owned characters in the game.
Other good candidates include Doom’s sister and predecessor series Wolfenstein (BJ Blackowitz), the highly influential Half-Life (Gordon Freeman), and the mega-blockbuster Call of Duty (soldier? I don’t know CoD), but these are series you add
after Doom or Halo.
TLDR: First-party: none
Third party: Doom Slayer, Master Chief.
Adventure games In case you don’t know, adventure games don’t refer to games like Zelda, which is an action-adventure game. You might know this genre better as point and click adventure games, though of course, they don’t need to be point-and-click. They could be text based, have regular controls or be what you call visual novels.
Nintendo has a few of these, but none very well-known. The two most notable both released for the Famicom Disk System: Shin Onigashima and the Famicom Detective Club duology, both of which received a Super Famicom remake and then nothing more. Though Japan-only and short-lived, both are fondly remembered, and Nintendo actually references them both quite a bit, almost as much as other retro NES games. Of the two, FDC is the most likely to get a Smash rep. In fact, Sakurai even said he wanted to include FDC protagonist Ayumi in Melee, but thought she’d be too unknown in the West. What’s more, the series is being revived this year with remakes of both games coming to the Switch (but only in Japan). Other than those, Nintendo had a couple of adventure series on the DS, Trace Memory and Hotel Dusk, but they weren’t very popular, and they are in that limbo of not being old enough to be nostalgic retro classics, and not new enough to be relevant. Speaking of new, Nintendo published a new adventure IP just last week, Buddy Mission BOND, but it’s probably
too new. It’s also, naturally, Japan-only.
On the third-party side, the adventure genre doesn’t have an undisputed king, but there are three series that I’d argue come close: King’s Quest, Monkey Island and Myst. This last one doesn’t really have a character, but the other two have quite memorable mascots: King’s Quest has the gallant King Graham, and Monkey Island has Guybrush Threepwood, a mighty pirate! King’s Quest is older, arguably more influential, has more games and is more relevant, with a fairly recent reboot, but MI is my personal pick. Unfortunately it’s owned by Disney, so… yeah. Not that it matters, because I don’t think either franchise was even released in Japan. Adventure games are heavily language-based, and especially in the early days, were very hard to localize. So just as we never got to enjoy Shin Onigashima and FDC, Japan never got to enjoy Monkey Island, though I think the new King’s Quest might have been released there. Anyway these would be “literally who?”s to Japanese fans, and frankly, to a lot of newer Western fans as well.
Luckily, there is one salvation for the genre. The Ace Attorney series is popular in both sides of the Pacific, it’s owned by Capcom, who’s already involved in Smash, it’s very popular with Nintendo’s fanbase and Phoenix has even already been in a fighting game. I wouldn’t call it the “Street Fighter of adventure games” but it’s probably the only one we’re gonna get.
TLDR: First-party: Ayumi (Famicom Detective Club), Donbe & Hikari (Shin Onigashima)
Third-party: Phoenix (Ace Attorney), Graham (King’s Quest), Guybrush (Monkey Island)
Survival horror Nintendo doesn’t have much in the way of horror games. Their only real foray into the genre was Eternal Darkness back in 2002. And though that was an acclaimed cult classic, it doesn’t seem Nintendo is interested enough in the series to do anything with it. On the other hand, we have the Fatal Frame series, which is in a weird spot. It isn’t technically owned by Nintendo, but Nintendo owns every game since the fourth, will continue to own every future game, and Koei Tecmo even said the future of the series is in Nintendo’s hands. Nintendo basically owns the series in practice if not legally. It seems to be in a similar spot to Bayonetta. Regardless, Nintendo is for sure more likely to use it than Eternal Darkness. It already has an AT!
Now for third-party this is easy: Resident Evil. Some of these other genres are pretty debatable, but there is no arguing over what series is the Street Fighter of horror games. No other horror series even comes close to it in terms of popularity, acclaim, influence, impact and even connection with Nintendo. I guess we could throw a bone to Silent Hill as a distant second, but if there is going to be a third-party horror rep, I think we can all agree on RE. It’s actually Capcom’s most successful series, far more than MegaMan or Street Fighter.
TLDR: First-party: a Fatal Frame rep, Alexandra (Eternal Darkness)
Third-party: a Resident Evil rep
Rhythm games Nintendo has quite a few rhythm games under its belt. The Ouendan/Elite Beat Agents series is great but kinda dead. The Daigasso! Series never came to America, but its popular in Japan, and has a recognizable main character in the form of Barbara the Bat. She is actually pretty popular herself, appearing in various merchandise and even had her own Twitter account. I wouldn’t discount her. But Nintendo’s biggest rhythm series is undoubtedly Rhythm Heaven. Many people actually expect it to be the next Nintendo Ip to be added, if there is one. It doesn’t have a real main character but there are a few possible choices, primarily the Chorus Kids and Karate Joe. Rhythm Heaven also has all original music, which sidesteps one very ironic big problem of rhythm games in Smash: despite being all about music, they’d probably be able to bring none, since most use licensed music.
On the third-party series, I feel the rhythm genre has two big icons: Guitar Hero from the West, and Dance Dance Revolution from the East. Good news: they both have characters that could rep them in Smash. Bad news: can you name any? Both series have the problem of the games themselves being super iconic, but the characters? Not really. Guitar Hero could be repped by
Johnny Napalm, basically the series mascot. He has been in every game, was on the cover for the first one, and has a distinctive appearance. But how many people could tell who he is? Especially if Smash just called him “Johnny”. Can you imagine? “Hey guys, they added Johnny to Smash!” Dance Dance Revolution doesn’t fare much better. Its series mascot is
Disco. You know… Disco! Super memorable character. I guess he’d be the first unambiguous black character in Smash, which is cool. Both series also have a problem of not being super relevant. Guitar Hero oversaturated the market, crashed and hasn’t been seen since 2015. DDR is still going, but is now mostly played by aficionados, the big new casual dance game is Just Dance which… doesn’t have characters, so it doesn’t help us either.
For an influential third-party game with recognizable characters we have to turn to Parappa the Rapper, which is actually credited as the first rhythm game, so it has the impact down. Unfortunately, its owned by Sony, who I doubt will collaborate. Actually PSASBR had Parappa, so I guess it beat Smash to the punch on the rhythm game representation. For a third-party game with recognizable characters that is popular and from a company that is willing to collaborate… uhm… Namco’s Taiko no Tatsujin and its mascot, Don-chan! I guess we’re stretching from my goal of finding THE rhythm game rep but, we have to work with what we got.
TLDR: First-party: Karate Joe or Chorus Kids (Rhythm heaven), Barbara the Bat (Daigasso! Band Brothers)
Third-party: Johnny Napalm (Guitar Hero), Disco (DDR), Parappa the Rapper, Don-Chan (Taiko no Tatsujin)
Real-time strategy “But hey!” You’ll say “Isn’t Pikmin an RTS?” Yes, it is! But it’s a very unconventional RTS. Most people use RTS to refer to the type of game that follows the template of Dune 2, so to cover my ass (and because I thought it’s be interesting), let’s talk about it. Pikmin is already Nintendo’s sole RTS series so let’s just talk third-party.
There are plenty of popular RTS franchises, and I’m not sure one stands too much taller than the others, but if I were to choose, I’d go with either Command & Conquer or StarCraft, both very popular and influential. Both also have popular, recognizable mascots, although interestingly, in both cases, not the hero, but the villain: Command & Conquer has Kane, and StarCraft has Kerrigan. C&C is not in a super hot place (though it just got a remaster), and I’m not sure if it’s well-known in Japan, but everybody knows what a sensation StarCraft is in Japan’s neighbor South Korea. Also fun fact: not only did both games receive a port to the N64, in BOTH cases, the port was
published by Nintendo. So hey, it’s not the wildest idea in this post.
TLDR: Kane (Command & Conquer), Kerrigan (StarCraft)
Also if you’re asking, why StarCraft as an RTS rep and not Warcraft, well…
MMORPGs and Western RPGs MMOs are a huge part of gaming, and the undisputed king is World of Warcraft. WoW has quite a few characters like Arthas or Jaina, but it is incredibly difficult to really set one character to represent the game. Even a generic playable avatar wouldn’t work, since the player can have wildly different races and abilities. No one character could properly represent the game. Now, you could argue WoW is a spin-off of the non-MMO series Warcraft, and if I don’t count Dr. Mario as a true puzzle rep for this reason, then WoW can’t be a MMO rep. Fair, if we want a
pure MMO series, the next best thing would be EverQuest, though I have no idea who could represent it.
Another important game in the genre is Ultima Online, although like WoW is a spin-off of a regular RPG, but since all RPGs in Smash are JRPGS, let’s use this opportunity to talk about the WRPGs. The Avatar or Lord British from Ultima would be great representatives. The Ultima series was at one point the most important RPG, and even influenced Dragon Quest, but it’s been quite dead for two decades. A more relevant and popularly-request option is the Elder Scrolls, particularly Skyrim’s Dragonborn. ES is no modern phenomenon either, it goes way back to 1994, so its both classic and relevant.
TLDR: A WoW rep, an EverQuest rep, the Avatar or Lord British (Ultima), Dragonborn (Elder Scrolls)
Tower defense Capping off this overly-long post with a genre for which Nintendo actually has a golden opportunity: Dillon from Dillon’s Rolling Western. DRW is one of the rare tower defense games that also features a recognizable player character that you can control like in an action game, and therefore, quite easy to put in Smash. Not sure if the series has a future, but the character seems to be one of the most popular to come off the 3DS-era eshop.
For third-party, I’m not sure the tower defense genre has a king, but the most popular might be Plants vs Zombies, and if we can get Piranha Plant, why not Peashooter?
Edit: Commenter suggested Crazy Dave for PvZ instead, which makes more sense
TLDR: First party: Dillon
Third-party: Peashooter (Plants vs Zombies)
Well, I’m gonna stop here. Obviously there are many genres and sub-genres, but to me these are the biggest missing. What other genres do you want to see repped? Roguelikes? MOBAs? Hero shooters? Or do you think another character that I didn’t mention should rep these ones? Or do you feel like some of the genres already in Smash could use better representation? Do you think Animal Crossing is more of a social sim, so for a true life sim rep we’d need The Sims in Smash? Do you think Bayonetta is
um ackshually a hack-n-slash so for a beat’em up rep we’d need someone from Double Dragon, Final Fight or Streets of Rage? Do you think Punch-Out isn’t really a sports game so John Madden needs to tackle the fight? Comment away
submitted by Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare (minus the “4”) is not the same game–not a remake, not a remaster, not even a sequel.If anything, call it a reboot. Yes, some familiar faces are back, like ... Call of Duty Online (also known as CODOL, CODO and Call of Duty: Online) is a Call of Duty game released exclusively in China as a "free-to-play micro transaction game" published, marketed, and distributed by Tencent Games and fully developed by Activision Shanghai and Raven Software. The game was launched on January 14, 2013 in closed beta. Buy Call of Duty (COD): Infinite Warfare PC ️ CD Key ️ Instant download ️ Fantastic price ️ Digital Download ️ Call of Duty®: Mobile: Future Intel – Questions Answered about the Beta Tests to Come With the first regional Beta test starting in Australia, and more territories coming online in the months to come, we asked the Call of Duty®: Mobile team about how the game is shaping up. Made for release in China as a free-to-play online release, Call of Duty Online capitalizes on the rich multiplayer experience that the Call of Duty franchise is known for and introduce a new ... Call of Duty Online (Now called Army Force Strike) is a massive multiplayer online first person shooter on the Call of Duty franchise. The game features a beautiful 3D graphics while maintaining a smooth gameplay which is a big plus for any competitive FPS games. Call of Duty Online also features dozens of maps and different game modes to play on. Call of Duty Online is a Free-to-Play Call of Duty game on PC that is only available in China and developed by Activision Shanghai and Raven Software. The game is meant to bring over the feel of Call of Duty games we all know and love to a country where the previous games haven’t been available, but it doesn't mean all other countries need to ... Experience the thrill of Call of Duty on the go. Play as iconic characters in battle royale and multiplayer in our best fps free mobile game. Download free now. Experience Call of Duty: the world’s best-selling video game franchise. Discover the latest updates to this first person shooter series all in one place. Call of Duty: Mobile is also another successful, and now established, pillar of the Call of Duty world for Activision. The mobile game has seen over 300 million downloads since its October 2019 launch, and recently launched in China, which will expand Activision’s Call of Duty audience significantly.. We can expect to see more Call of Duty: Mobile Seasons as the year goes on.