Hasta La Motion!

It’s a rare occasion that films earn a substantial amount even before releasing worldwide or rather at least domestically. Captain America: Civil War has been one of those rare films as it has earned a massive $200.2 million at the international box office right in its first weekend of overseas release.

The Disney and Marvel superhero adventure released on 27 April, 2016 in 15 countries and earned $14.9 million. It then opened in 15 more countries on the following day 28 April and amounted for a two-day total of $38.7 million from 30 countries. On Friday 29 April, it opened in 8 additional territories, and its three day collection amounted to $84 million from 38 countries in total.

Till Sunday 1 May 2016, the film had a five-day opening weekend total of $200.2 million from 37 countries. It is surprising that these territories are about 63 per cent of its total marketplace and are all based outside the major domestic territory of the film’s market – North America.

The film is yet to be released in major territories like North America, China and India as it will hit theatres on 6 May, 2016 in these regions. In North America itself the film will open in above 4,000 theaters, therefore the North American box office is probably going to witness astonishing numbers.

With $200.2 million already in its kitty in just six days of its release in limited areas, Captain America: Civil War  is definitely going to garner huge box office numbers. As far as the franchise is concerned, Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) earned $259.8 million in North America and $454.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $714.4 million. While, Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) earned $176.7 million in North America and $193.9 million internationally, for a worldwide total of $370.6 million. Surely, this third venture is going to surpass these collections and leap way ahead according to the current statistics.

It seems like the film has been performing less like a sequel to the star-spangled hero’s films and more like another installment in the “Avengers” franchise. This film actually debuted ahead of Avengers: Age of Ultron in some territories like Mexico and Brazil.

Directed by Anthony and Joe Russo, Captain America: Civil War features the Avengers in their continued efforts to safeguard humanity and also in a conflict to choose sides. The highlight stays as Captain America battles with Iron Man as one leads a team of rebels while the other a team that works for the government.

Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, this film is much awaited with a lot of anticipation and expectation after the recent disappointing superhero film Batman vs Superman.

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Gaming Conferences are always a hotbed to sight and play new games that are either in development stage or are about to be launched, and the recently concluded PGConnects Bangalore 2016 was no different. The Indian mobile gaming market is currently on the rise at least when it comes to games and its development. Developers here have an advantage and have already had a good look at the market (both national and international), learning from mistakes of their compatriots and even their own, and know that the quality and gameplay need to be globally competitive

This year the conference saw a number of games being showcased at the booth and the games were not run of the mill usual clones but a range of new ideas and gameplay mechanics in a variety of genres which showcased the talent from the country. 

Here are the games that impressed me at PG Connects 2016 in no particular order:

Bluk

Physics based arcade game, Bluk is a combination of Angry Birds like tossing the object and Monument Valley like environment. Developed by Pixel Ape Studios, this game is currently under beta stage and developer is still working on tweaking a few things before the final release.

Drag

Developed by a student from DSK Supinfogame, Drag takes you back to the roots of mobile gaming when you had arcade titles reigning the app stores. Drag has a basic gameplay where you arrange the tiles at your disposal so that the ball that is bouncing in the middle of the screen does not hit the spikes at the edge of your screen. As easy as it may sound, each tile can only be placed once and appear on a certain angle causing a lot of problems but also ensuring that you don’t put down the phone quickly.

From left: Future Ride, Drag

Future Ride

If I had to describe Future Ride from All in a days play studio in one sentence it would be ‘an insanely engrossing game.’ The gameplay is a mix of Tron-esque bike riding players playing against each other to get a ball into the hoop. But this gets fun when you move around and do somersaults, both trying to score as well as save the ball from going into the hoop. You can literally spend hours on this one.

Hakuna’s Fire

One more game from the students of DSK Supinfogame, Hakuna’s Fire is an action adventure game which has a meerkat Hakuna as a central character and stuck between the rivalry of Carnivores and Herbivores in Africa. This one combines the classic Zelda elements with stealth and brains to overcome different worlds and acquire the mystical object, The Edan Fire.

Huebe

After last year’s win at The Very Big Indie Pitch, Himanshu Manwani was back this year to show his second game. Yes, his first game Super Nano Jumpers is not out yet, but the studio is working on it. This one again takes the puzzle route and has you handling a cube with the aim to reach the destination. But, it can only pass the blocks if the cube has right colours to it. Interesting!

From left: Monarchy, Huebe

Monarchy

The winner at this year’s PG Connects The Very Big Indie Pitch is Big Boot Games Monarchy which is a mobile board game that takes elements from tower defence games but adds a lot more it on the top. You have 25 soldiers and four knights at your disposal and your goal is to get these four knights to the centre of the board and defeat the other player.

Jhulo

First game by Seema Datar, Jhulo is a puzzle game and easily one of the wonders from PGC Bangalore 2016. With simplicity and amazing gameplay, this one needs your attention and timing as you tap the balls in the rings to make them swing keeping in mind that no two balls should hit each other.

One more Pass

SuperSike Games and Yellow Monkey Studios join hands for this one. After the successful One More Run, SuperSike Games extended its title lineup from cricket to football and this one is as much fun as the previous game. You need to keep passing the ball to the player ahead of you without letting the player from the opposite team touch or come and steal it from you. The game currently is in development and developers have planned a number of upgrades before its release later this year.

From left: War Tanks, One More Pass

War Tanks

Developed by Hypernova Interactive, a studio formed by two people who have been ex-Zynga and ex-Hike Messenger employees respectively, the studio aims to become as they call Riot Games of mobile gaming. They want to capture the eSports market segment and have taken the first step with War Tanks.

A 1v1 battle, War Tanks makes you control a tank and shoot missiles to down the enemy tanks, but you don’t know exactly where is it located on the other side of the board. The only way you can see the opponent’s tank is that they move over the radius of your last shot. It is like Battleships but here, instead of a number of ships you have one tank which you are allowed to move on the grid.

The Light Inside Us

The Light Inside Us is developed by Dastan Games and has been around in the circuit for a while now even releasing on the app store, but I am listing the game here because the two member studio has polished the game and now it looks beautiful and a lot more game mechanics are added to make it even more fascinating by merging a couple of genres into a single game. The central character has to clear each level by shooting minion like characters and collect the light from them which can be used to shoot again.

Wordifly

The Good Side Games’ Wordifly lets you control Glowee the firefly, and collect letters to spell words to continue your flight. A serene environment and addictive gameplay, Wordifly were runners up at PG Connects Bangalore, and is currently out now on beta, so go and bring out your spelling bee skills to fore for this one.

From left: Zenith, Wordifly

Zenith

The PC game in the mobile conference, Zenith is developed in collaboration by two studios, Infigon and HolyCow Productions and is a humorous take on traditional RPG games. The game has already been Greenlit on Steam and is expected to see a release in Q2 this year. I did not get to play the game much but what I saw from the trailer, it is funny and a fitting tribute to all classic RPGs.

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With the world hopping on board the digital domain on a rapid pace, marketers and their firms are eyeing more and more towards the digital mode of communication.

With various entertainment portals inclining towards the VOD service while catering to consumer demands, the recent focus seems to be on dedicated kids’ entertainment portals.

Recently, Viacom18 released VOOT, which is an application consisting of the company’s full repository of TV channels like Colors, MTV and Nick! Although, meant for every age group, the platform focuses heavily on kid’s content with a plethora of characters loved by kids, like Chota Bheem, Dora, Spongebob, Motu Patlu and much more.

Now, taking the trend one step ahead, nexGTv, the subscription based video entertainment app from DigiVive Services has launched a brand new app completely dedicated to kids’ entertainment. nexGTv Kids is a video and infotainment, subscription based app for kids and is first of its kind in India. The app will feature an assortment of classic favourites like Malgudi Days, Panchatantra, Vikram and Betal, Champak while balancing it with creative and interactive programs like House Clay Tutorials, indulging science experiment videos and more. Apart from that, the Live TV section of the app will open gateways to Cartoon Network, Pogo and Big Magic for the kids with a movie list comprising in the likes of Popeye – Bride & Gloom, Boxer Rebellion, Bumm Bumm Bhole and Bal Ganesha.

nexGTv, COO, Abhesh Verma said, “We are very excited to present the brand new ‘only for kids’ platform, nexGTv Kids. We have thoroughly handpicked the content that entertains, educates and encourages kids to learn, teaching them skills of crafts, origami, etc. Besides, to further enhance our service offering for kids, we are also planning to introduce new high-quality original content with familiar characters.”

While, VOOT had planned to focus more on the kids’ section with their plans to bring original and unique content for the niche, so does nexGTv Kids. The only difference is while VOOT is based on AVOD model, nexGTv Kids is based on SVOD model. Though the nextGTv Kids app is said to have a SVOD model, we observed that the app is available for free and the videos are available for free. It’s not clear what all content is available for free of charge as for few videos, an option to subscribe and watch all videos for that time span do comes on the screen. However, if you subscribe to the channel, it gives you complete access to all channels, movies and videos on the application with complimentary access to nexGTv and vice versa.

However nextGTv might just be more successful given their app is completely dedicated to kids. Although, it all depends on the kind of service they provide, as initially VOOT had received some flak over technical issues in the app. Let’s see how nexTGv Kids fairs on those grounds.

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The 6th edition of the Dada Saheb Phalke Film Festival, an initiative to mark the birth anniversary of Late Shri Dhundiraj Govind Phalke, who is regarded as the father of Indian Cinema, took place on 30 April, 2016 at Delhi. This festival in the memory of the legendary figure fondly remembered as Dada Saheb Phalke witnesses a pool of films of all genres and formats every year on 30 April right from its inception in 2011.

This year too, the festival witnessed a large number of films across genres like live action and animation of varied formats like documentary, feature films, shorts and ad films.

The VFX heavy Sanjay Leela Bhansali’s Bollywood blockbuster Bajirao Mastani won the award for the Best Feature Film and also NYVFXWAALA, co-founder, Prasad Sutar won the award for the Best VFX for this film which enthralled the audience with the use of appealing visual effects.

The Best Animated feature was won by The Return produced by Sky Frames Studios while, the Best Animated Feature Jury and Best Screenplay award was won by Bal Ganesh 3 produced by Shemaroo Entertainment. Director Vijay Milton won the Best Director award for Toonz Animation’s Little Kalari Warriors while, Toonz Animation’s Pakdam Pakdai 2 won the Special Festival Mention. Adventures of Appu and Gappu produced by Magicwand Animation won the Special Festival Mention Jury award.

In the Animated Short category, Studio Eeksaurus’ Fisherwoman & Tuk Tuk won the Best Animated Short award while, Maya Digital’s Shiva won the same award as per the Jury. Chhaya produced by The National Film & Television School, India won the Best Animated Short-Student and Phalke-The First Seed produced by MAAC won the same as per the Jury.

Animated short Agrinoui produced by A. Chaviaras Productions and Rabbit Blood by SVS won the Special Jury Mention award. Studio Eeksaurus’ What is your brown number? won the Special Jury Mention- Student award while, Chetan Sashital won the Best Music award for the Fisherwoman & Tuk Tuk short.

Teammate Workers’ animated short Khelna Bati, Yellow Marble Films’ The Box and Reliance AIMS’ One Day to Next won the Special Festival Mention award.

Suresh Eriyat’s Studio Eeksaurus Productions won the Best Animation Production House for their exemplary work in the animation genre.

The festival witnessed films from all over the globe as it aimed to celebrate the excellence in cinema. The festival has been providing a chance to filmmakers to showcase their creativity at a large platform and inspire the world to create further good quality films and considerably enhance the innovation of cinema.

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Sony Corporation (Sony) reported 1.3 per cent drop in sales for the year ended 31 March 2016 (FY-16, current year). Sony’s revenue for the current year was ¥8,105.7 billion, for the previous year it was ¥8,215.9 billion. Sony attributes the decrease to a decline of 20 per cent in sales of its Mobile Communications (MC) segment which was offset by a 11.8 per cent increase in sales of its Games and Network Services (G&NS) segment, and a 10.4 per cent in sales from its Music segment. The increase in sales from Sony’s G&NS segment reflects an increase in sales of its PlayStation 4 (PS4).

Sony’s reported net income attributable to stockholders at ¥147.8 billion for the current year as compared to a loss of ¥126 billion yen in the previous year.

Of special significance from the India perspective was the increase in Media Networks sales which was primarily due to higher advertising revenues in India and the United Kingdom. The Media Networks is a category in Sony’s Pictures segment.

Mobile Communications

MC segment reported 20 per cent drop in sales in FY-16 to ¥1,127.5 billion from ¥1,410.2 billion in the previous year. The segment reported a lower operating loss of ¥61.4 billion as compared to an operating loss ¥217.6 billion in the previous year. The company says that this was because of a strategic decision not to pursue scale in order to improve profitability.

Game & Network Services

G&NS segment reported an increase of 11.8 per cent in sales to ¥1,551.9 billion in the current year as compared to ¥1,388 billion in the previous year. The above mentioned gains from PS4 were offset by a decline in PS3 hardware and software sales. Operating income in FY-16 increased 84.4 per cent in the current year to ¥88.7 billion from ¥48.1 billion in the previous year. Sony attributes the increase to increase in PS4 software sales and PS4 hardware cost reductions as well as the absence of write down of ¥11.2 billion in the current year of PS Vita and PS TV components that was recorded in FY-15.

Imaging Products & Solutions (IP&S)

 IP&S segment reported a 1.7 per cent decline in sales in FY-16 to ¥712.2 billion as compared to ¥723.9 billion in the previous year. Sony says that sales of video cameras and digital cameras were lower due to the contraction of the market. This segment reported a 72.1 increase in operating profit in FY-16 at ¥72.1 billion from ¥41.8 billion in the previous year. The increase was due to improvement in product mix of digital cameras and price reductions.

Home Entertainment & Sound (HE&S)

HE&S segment reported a 6.4 per cent decline in sales in FY-16 to ¥1,159 billion from ¥1,238.1 billion in FY-15. Sony says that this was due to a decline in unit sales of LCD televisions and a decline in home audio and video unit sales, reflecting a contraction of the market. Television sales declined 4.5 per cent in FY-16 to ¥797.8 billion as compared to last year.

The segment’s operating income increased to ¥50.6 billion in the current year from ¥24.1 in FY-15, primarily due to cost reductions and increase in product mix.

Devices

Devices segment revenue in FY-16 was flat (increased by 0.9 per cent) to ¥735.8 billion from ¥927.1 billion in FY-15. The segment reported an operating loss of ¥28.6 billion in the current year as compared to an operating profit of ¥89 billon in FY-15.

Pictures

Pictures segment sales increased 6.8 per cent to ¥938.1 billion in FY-16 from ¥878.7 billion in the previous year. Sony’s Pictures segment is primarily comprises of Motion Pictures, Televisions Productions and Media Networks categories. The impact of forex rates and lower sales in Motion Pictures was offset by higher sales in Televisions Productions and Media Networks. The increase in Media Networks was primarily due to higher advertising revenues in India and the United Kingdom. The increase in Television Productions sales was primarily due to higher subscription video-on-demand (VOD) revenues from Breaking Bad, The Blacklist and Better call Saul.

Operating income for the segment declined 51.9 per cent in the current year to ¥38.5 billion from ¥58.5 billion in FY-15.

Music

Sony’s Music segment comprises of Recorded Music, Music Publishing and Visual Media and Platform categories. The segment reported a 10.4 per cent increase in sales to ¥617.6 billion in FY-16 from ¥559.2 billion in FY-15. Sony says that the increase was primarily due to the depreciation of the yen versus the US dollar. There was a significant increase in Visual Media and Platform sales reflecting the continued strong performance of a game application for mobile devices. In Recorded Music digital streaming revenues significantly increased, partially offset by a worldwide decline in physical and digital download sales. The current year includes the record breaking sales of Adele’s new album 25. Other best-selling titles include One Direction’s Made in the A.M., David Bowie’s Black Star and Meghan Trainor’s Title.

The segment’s operating income increased 44.1 percent in FY-16 to ¥87.3 billion from ¥60.6 billion in the previous year.

Besides the above, Sony has two other segments – Financial Services and All Other services. Numbers of these segments have not been mentioned in this report.

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