In the past week there have been a slew of different kinds of numbers, milestones, and earnings reports that have popped up.  Much of this is due to second quarter reports that were posted fairly recently.  For those who may not know, the fiscal year (or financial year) is divided into four quarters, and does not necessarily begin with the beginning of the calendar year.  For instance the US fiscal year of 2014 actually began on October 1, 2013, but a fiscal year for Japan can start on a different date.  Most of these reports are Q2 but that isn’t to say on whose fiscal calendar that is from.  So, to avoid complication, I won’t list all of the companies different start and end dates.

Instead of writing every single one of these as an individual story, we’re giving you a summary of each story’s details.  While not every story has to do with Q2 reports and earnings, much of them fall within the category of numbers reports. Here is a collective of everything we were able to find throughout the week:

Yacht Club Games reported very successful numbers for their first game, Shovel Knight.  The game pushed out 75,000 copies in its first week, and 180,000 for the month.  For more info on the game and its sales, check Jesse Webster’s run down of these numbers.

Grand Theft Auto V has met another milestone, selling over 34 million copies, as reported by IGN.  The game became the fastest-selling entertainment release in history, reported by Take-Two back in October 2013, and they believe it will continue to raise the bar for sales with a higher quality port being released for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One before the end of the year.

Activision Blizzard announced that Diablo 3 has become the Number 1 selling PC game of all time, having sold 20 million copies since its release in 2012.  For more information check out Ryan Latuso’s write up on the news.

Aside from just reporting on Diablo numbers, Activision has revealed that they brought in $970 million in revenue, while down from $1.07 billion last in last years second quarter earnings, this is still a substantial figure that beat their projections.

“Our better-than-expected performance was driven by continued strong digital sales from Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls, and Blizzard Entertainment’s newest franchise, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, which recently launched on the iPad and continues to be well received by audiences around the world,” said Bobby Kotick, CEO of Activision Blizzard.”

Not to be left out, Square Enix released information that they have continued to remain profitable, citing Q1 reports.  Their success was thanks to older titles that have continued to sell well, as they only released a single new game in the months of the first quarter, that being Murdered: Soul Suspect.

While technically not pertaining to any quarterly reports, it is being reported that more retailers are canceling Destiny pre-orders.  According to IGN, Best Buy began notifying consumers who had pre-ordered the game this week that Limited Edition pre-order numbers exceed the quantity made available to the company.  Not more than a week ago it was Wal-Mart making cancellations for LE Destiny pre-orders.  Will GameStop be next?

Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes PlayStation 4 outsold its Xbox One counterpart 3 to 1.  Again, not entirely financial report related, but interesting all the same.  While we know that PlayStation 4’s have been outselling Xbox Ones, that doesn’t guarantee that the number of games sold for each system are similar.  You can read more about this where the story originated, on Game Informer.

Lastly, Gamasutra has reported that Zynga, the desktop browser gaming company, missed its projectioned $191 million, coming in at $153 million.  Kris Graft, the author for the piece noted:

“Zynga has been working to reposition a business that was traditionally focused on desktop browsers to one that is able to compete on mobile devices. But the ongoing transition isn’t easy.”

For full details on any of the pieces, don’t forget to check out the links!

My Opinion:

There’s a lot to say from this piece so I’ll keep it to the parts that are most important to me.  First, financial boasting such as revenue reports don’t do much of anything for me, not unless they include how such a profit will impact the consumers.  I think GTAV doesn’t need to keep giving us an update for every million copies they push, it’s kind of poor sportsmanship when they reported on it only a couple of months ago.  I’m happy to see Diablo doing well, I would enjoy more expansions like Reaper of Souls for the game.  And lastly it’s nice to see that PS4’s aren’t just being bought but gamed on in nearly the same quantity that they are being sold.

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Scott Deisner is an Associate Writer for MONG.  He enjoys story and character driven content above all else, things made from potatoes, and long walks on sandy beaches ;P  You can follow him on Twitter.