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NPD analyst Mat Piscatella said that Activision's (ATVI) "Call of Duty: Black Ops: Cold War" was the best-selling game of both December as well as 2020, while "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare" was 2020's 2nd best-seller. "Call of Duty" ranked as the best-selling gaming franchise in the U.S. market for a record 12th consecutive year. Nintendo's (NTDOY) "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" was 2020's 3rd best-selling title, and the 6th best-selling game of December. In 2020 the title achieved the highest physical dollar sales for a Nintendo published game in a calendar year since Wii Fit Plus in 2010. CD Projekt's (OTGLY) "Cyberpunk 2077" debuted as the #2 best-selling game of December, and the 19th best-selling game of 2020, despite the lack of digital tracking. Sony's (SNE) "The Last of Us: Part II" finished 2020 as the year's 6th best-selling title overall. "The Last of Us: Part II" now ranks as the 3rd best-selling Sony published game in U.S. history in dollar sales, trailing only "Marvel's Spider-Man" and 2018's "God of War." Half of the top 20 best-selling games of December 2020 were published by Nintendo, Piscatella said. Other companies in the video game software space include Microsoft (MSFT), Ubisoft (UBSFY), Capcom (CCOEY), Tencent (TCEHY), Electronic Arts (EA), and Take-Two (TTWO). Reference Link

Fujifilm is making an investment of more than $2B to establish a new large-scale cell culture production site in the United States to accelerate the growth of its biopharmaceutical contract development and manufacturing business, or CDMO. Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies, a subsidiary of Fujifilm, with development and manufacturing facilities across the U.S.A., U.K., and Denmark will operate the new facility. This new facility will offer large-scale cell culture manufacturing of bulk drug substance with 8 x 20,000L bioreactors, with the potential to expand and add a further 24 x 20,000L bioreactors based on market demand. In addition to drug substance manufacture, the facility will also provide commercial scale, automated fill-finish and assembly, packaging and labeling services. The new site will be built within the vicinity of an existing Fujifilm site, and is scheduled to begin operations in the spring of 2025. Fujifilm has set a target to achieve an annual revenue of 200B yen for its Bio CDMO business by fiscal year ending March 2025. Beyond fiscal year ending March 2026, Fujifilm expects this latest investment to boost the annual growth rate of its Bio CDMO Business to 20%, greatly exceeding market projections.

SuperData, a Nielsen company, released its 2020 Year in Review report focusing on the health of digital games and interactive media market, the impact of COVID-19 on games and brands, and likely gaming trends in 2021. Overall, digital games alone earned $126.6B in 2020, up 12% year-over-year in a year where audiences were forced to stay home and interact remotely. Free-to-play games continued to generate the vast majority of games revenue (78%), with Asian markets accounting for 59% of free-to-play earnings. The mobile market experienced 10% growth in 2020 and accounted for 58% of the total games market. "Roblox" (RBLX) was the third highest-earning digital game of 2020 and surpassed Fortnite thanks to strong mobile growth. "Roblox" mobile earnings grew as the game creation platform became a social network of choice for young gamers. Although Epic's "Fortnite" still earned more than $1B in 2020, it faced stiff competition from games like "Roblox" and Activision's (ATVI) "Call of Duty: Warzone." Premium games earnings grew 28% year-over-year, outpacing the growth of the free-to-play market. Meanwhile, gaming video content became a $9.3B industry in 2020, reaching 1.2B viewers, and virtual reality and augmented reality earned $6.7B in 2020 as VR game earnings jumped 25% year-over-year to $589M in 2020. The release of Valve's "Half-Life: Alyx" reinvigorated interest in the technology among hardcore gamers. Additionally, the untethered and budget-friendly Oculus Quest 2 (FB) headset attracted everyday consumers to VR. Despite an increase in gaming activity due to COVID-19, the rollout of a vaccine is not expected to cause a gaming crash, SuperData noted. Other companies in the video game space include Electronic Arts (EA), Take-Two (TTWO), Microsoft (MSFT), Sony (SNE), Nintendo (NTDOY), Ubisoft (UBSFY), and Capcom (CCOEY). Investors in Epic include Tencent (TCEHY), KKR (KKR), Disney (DIS), and Sony. Reference Link

Palantir (PLTR) announced it was expanding its work with Fujitsu (FJTSY) with a one-year, $8M contract between Fujitsu and Palantir Technologies Japan K.K. Fujitsu will also become the first distributor of Palantir's Foundry platform modules in the Japanese market. Fujitsu has used Palantir Foundry since last year to optimize its hardware supply chain, further improve its customer service efforts, and modernize its technological infrastructure, and will continue to do so until at least the end of 2021. Fujitsu will also become the first distributor within Japan of ERP Suite, a Palantir Foundry module. Fujitsu is already using ERP Suite internally to integrate its ERP systems with other critical systems of record. This new module distribution channel will be accompanied by a Foundry certification program for Fujitsu's DX services business.