The online game industry’s revenues and profits this year may be impacted by the popularity of handset-based games, Chinese Gamer International Corp (中華網龍), one of the nation’s leading online game publishers, said yesterday.
“These low-priced or free-of-charge handset-based games for smartphones and tablets have impacted the industry, especially the 2D online games market,” company president Leu Shyue-sen (呂學森) told a media briefing.
Against this backdrop, Chinese Gamer is planning to launch its first major cross-platform online game — compatible with PCs, tablets and smartphones — in the fourth quarter or the first quarter next year to help expand its revenues and profits, Leu said.
“After launching six small-scale games, we are ready to expand our business in the handset-game market,” he said.
Chinese Gamer’s six newly launched small-scale games are bundled with one of Acer Inc’s (宏碁) Android-based tablets.
Leu said yesterday the company is also planning to launch new products that will be bundled with Asustek Computer Inc’s (華碩) mobile devices, but did not elaborate.
He said the company would focus more on developing major cross-platform games in the future, as these games may contribute more revenues and profits to the company, adding that he was confident that customers would be willing to pay for higher quality games.
During the first six months of the year, revenue totaled NT$867.29 million (US$30.03 million), down 12.26 percent from a year earlier, the company’s data showed.
Chinese Gamer’s net profit was NT$158.45 million, or NT$1.82 per share, in the first quarter, compared with NT$274.7 million, or NT$3.19 per share, in the same period last year, the data showed.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is