Happy Thursday, TTN readers! Today’s TTN is all about video gaming. I even led in today’s TTN with a TikTok I posted yesterday. I’m on with Mark Starling, Seth, John, and the First News 570 crew. This week’s top tech stories: SONY buys Bungie for billions, SEGA spins out of the coin-op business, and the New York Times spurtles Wordle. You can listen to Mark and I point and laugh while talking about the wild and crazy technology world every Thursday morning, LIVE at 6:43am Eastern by tuning into WWNC on the iHeartRadio app.
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SEGA COMPLETES SALE OF COIN-OP GAMES
An era has unfortunately come to an end. Video gaming innovator, SEGA, has sold the remaining pieces of its coin operated video game business. This week, SEGA announced it sold the business to Genda, Inc. After billions of quarters, SEGA is leaving the business after 56 years of installing cabinets running Shinobi, OutRun, Zaxxon, and Virtua Fighter in arcades the world over. COVID-19 hit SEGA especially hard forcing them to close the iconic SEGA Tower arcade in Akhibara. SEGA isn’t going anywhere. Sonic has a new movie out, and they’ve focused on shipping software titles after bowing out of the console wars after the much beloved, but not sold enough Dreamcast.
NYT GUESSES CORRECTLY: SPURTLES WORDLE
I told you it’s the gaming edition. Earlier this week, the New York Times purchased Aaron Rieke’s popular word game, Wordle, for a low seven-figure price. The NYT’s crossword is a much beloved game of the brainy set, and word fiends can be sure to find Wordle next to it. Don’t be afraid, you can still download Wordle for free and play it in your browser for years to come. My brainy wife plays Wordle everyday and she’s always showing me her phone when she guesses in one or two tries. Show off.
In a bizarre twist, SONY purchased the gaming studio, Bungie, for $3.6 billion. Bungie is most famous for developing the Halo franchise and making the Xbox a must buy. SONY HAAADDD to buy Bungie. They had to buy a studio when you have Microsoft out here snapping up software companies that make many of the games for your platform (PlayStation). Microsoft has acquired a huge list of game developers, the latest being Activision Blizzard. Bungie doesn’t have the cache` they once had. Destiny is their most popular title. Great but not a must have. After going through the acquisition process, I think they overpaid.
Extra analysis. I was on with some gamers earlier this week and here’s how they described SONY’s purchase:
“Bungie used to be Microsoft’s golden boy… without Bungie (who made Halo) the original Xbox probably would have failed. Then Bungie n microsoft broke up. Then Bungie got with Activision… they broke up… then Sony got with Bungie and now Sony is wifing Bungie after she has been good and ran through. Bungie is Drake”
and
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Yeah. But all Bungie really has now is Destiny. None of their other stuff is as popular.
MS has licenses AND studios. They have been quietly buying independent developers for years.
I’m curious to see how this works out. Games Pass has made gaming a whole new experience. I don’t need to buy each and every game anymore. That’s HUGE.”