UPDATE: The original version of this story erroneously mentioned that Sony was relocating its headquarters. Sony Europe has provided GamingBolt with the following statement to clarify the same:

“Sony Europe has established a new legal entity ‘Sony Europe B.V.’ in Amsterdam (NL) and will merge ‘Sony Europe Ltd,’ (UK) into that new entity. In this way we can continue our business as usual without disruption once the UK leaves the EU. All our existing European business functions, facilities, departments, sites, and location of our people will remain unchanged from today.”

The original post has been edited to reflect the correct facts. We apologize for the error.

ORIGINAL STORY:

The UK has gone ahead and made a royal mess of things, with the whole Brexit debacle, and how badly and indecisively it has tried to handle things in the wake of the initial referendum. With a no-deal Brexit (meaning UK exits from the European Union with no concessions gained or safeguards in place) seemingly likely, it seems like companies are relocating to ensure their own economic and financial safety and stability.

One of those companies is Sony, which has announced that it is establishing a new legal entity, Sony Europe BV in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and will be merging Sony Europe in the UK into that new entity. Now, the good news here is that no one is losing jobs—Sony is only moving the legal entity to Netherlands, and will be merging the Sony Europe entity with it, while previous business functions, facilities, departments, sites, and locations of employees will remain unchanged.

A spokesman for Sony said to NU.nl, “It only concerns a change of the legal entity of Sony Ltd. to Sony Europe BV.”

For Sony, and people living in mainland Europe, this shouldn’t mean much of anything.

The Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Nintendo Switch bundle, which Nintendo released in North America as its Black Friday and Holiday season shopping offering, may be coming to Europe, too. According to European news site GameKult, the bundle is due to come to Europe, and will be announced soon.

The bundle will be priced at €299.99, which makes it the cheapest possible way to get a new Switch with a new game in Europe (short of specific retailer discounts, at any rate). It will apparently be getting a massive shipment too—apparently 600,000 units are being shipped to France upfront, which indicates Nintendo has a lot of confidence in it doing well.

Whether or not it does, and whether or not it helps them meet that 20 million target, remains to be seen. The good news is, per this report, we don’t have too long to wait for the bundle to launch in Europe—in France, at least, it is set to come out on December 3, which is next week.

Of course, there’s been no official word on the validity of this report from Nintendo so far, but stay tuned to GamingBolt, and we’ll keep you updated in case any new info comes our way.

With microtransactions having become the nexus of a storm, more and more governments and agencies around the world have started to look into how they could regulate them, or at least, better inform customers about their presence in a game they may be looking at, so they can make more informed decisions.

On which note, the Pan European Game Information board, known more commonly as PEGI, the agency that rates games for the European market, has announced that it will be adopting a new label to denote whether or not a game has in-game purchases and microtransactions. If nothing else, it’s a better way for people buying games, especially parents who may be buying them for their kids and may not necessarily be informed about them, to know what they are getting into.

“Purchase offers within games has become a broad phenomenon, and it is necessary to provide the same level of consumer information on both physical and digital releases,” Simon Little, PEGI’s managing director, said. “Considering that physical releases are an important part of the market, this was an important gap to fill.”

Of course, with many European markets moving outright to ban forms of monetization such as lootboxes, in the end, it is to be hoped that publishers themselves will drop exploitative monetization practices, and we will instead not have to rely on these labels.

Europe has some of the most customer friendly laws anywhere in the world- they’re far ahead of the curve in this regard, implementing policies that the rest of the world only catches up to years later. So it should come as no surprise, for example, that Europe has some extremely progressive customer protection laws for digital purchases, too.

Essentially, in Europe, you are required to give customers the right to cancel digital pre-orders- a right that Nintendo does not allow on the eShop, and that Valve, Sony, and EA don’t obtain express consent from customers on the latter’s waiver to their rights to withdrawal [of digital purchases]. This has caused the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) to report all four for being in contravention of European Customer Protection legislation.

To this, all I can say is: good. I hope that this causes better protection of digital purchases on EA, Sony, Nintendo, and Valve’s gaming platforms (Microsoft is far ahead of everyone else in this regard, thankfully).

[GamesIndustry]

Europe is one of the most consumer friendly regimes in the world, so it makes sense that they would be among the first to call someone out on their digital rights policy, were it found lacking. And Nintendo’s is definitely lacking.

Specifically, if you pre-order a game digitally on the Nintendo eShop, you can’t actually get a refund on it from within the store- and this, according to The Norwegian Consumer Council, is not acceptable. It is, in fact, apparently in contravention of EU laws.

“They have to change how they do things,” said Thomas Iversen of the NCC. “They have to follow the rules and clearly show how the consumer can proceed if they want to cancel a pre-order. No matter what their policies are on pre-orders or refunds, the right of withdrawal is always applicable before the game is released.”

I… have to say I agree with them on this. I hope that enough noise is made on this that Nintendo is forced to change its digital right policy going forward. And not just Nintendo, either- everyone offering better digital options to consumers would be something that would be, in the end, greatly appreciated by everyone, I am sure.

Europe has traditionally always been a very strong territory for Sony and PlayStation, ever since the original PlayStation. Even the weaker PlayStation products, such as the PS3 in its early years, or the PS Vita, manage to do reasonably well for themselves there. Even at its best, Xbox has been unable to make many inroads in Europe against PlayStation, with the exception of in the U.K.

And it looks like Sony executives are acutely aware of that fact, too. Speaking to Time, PlayStation America boss Shawn Layden said, “All of the rumors of the demise of the console are very much premature. In fact if you’re watching [sales tracker] NPD for PS4 and Xbox One sales, you put those together and console gaming has never been as big and vibrant as it is right now. And that’s just here in the States.”

Sony Europe’s Jim Ryan added, “It’s been pleasing that in North America, we’ve been 2-to-1 against Xbox,” says Ryan. “But in Europe, it’s really been fortress PlayStation by at least 3-to-1 in unit sales.”

This seems about right- Sony inherited Sega’s strength in Europe and has ruled the roost in the region ever since. Xbox has always been weak in the territory- even Nintendo usually ends up doing stronger.

The Switch is officially a hit- at this point that’s clear. We’ve received numbers for Japan, North America, France, and the UK, and now Nintendo of Europe has chipped in to let us know (via GamesIndustry.biz) that the Switch was officially their most successful hardware launch ever. This beats out hit platforms like Wii, DS, 3DS, and Gameboy Advance, among other things.

That’s not all, either- the superlative The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is Nintendo’s most successful launch game in Europe, ever. This is not only more than previous great launch titles like Super Mario 64, but also more than Wii Sports, which was bundled with the Wii. Clearly, the game has struck a chord with people.

This is an amazing launch for Nintendo, and it is a great start for this new system. It is also an excellent rebound after the dismal performance the Wii U put up. Hopefully Nintendo can continue along these lines going forward.

At this point, it’s well established that the Nintendo Switch seems to have done well everywhere– that apparently includes France too, which is a part of Europe, a territory that Nintendo has been historically weak in. In France, the Switch sold 105,000 units over its launch weekend- this is the best launch Nintendo has ever had in France ever, exceeding even the Wii’s, which sold 95,000 in its debut weekend.

That’s not all, either- apparently, this is the best console launch, from any console manufacturer, in France, ever. That means out of all Sega, PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo systems sold, the Switch has managed to sell the highest over its launch weekend.

Sales were certainly driven by interest in the system’s core concept, its great marketing, and the stupendous The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild– it remains to be seen whether or not Nintendo can continue maintaining this level of success, but for now, they’re certainly off to a great start.

[LegiGaro, via NeoGAF]

Sony may be leading this generation of console saes, but it looks like it has no intention of relinquishing that lead any time soon, either. With the launch of the Nintendo Switch worldwide tomorrow, it looks like Sony is planning to mysteriously drop the price of the PS4 Slim in Europe to just 199 Euros.

But, I hear you say, the Switch and the PS4 are not competing directly- and you are right about that. The Switch and the PS4 cater to two very different markets with little to no overlap. And where there is overlap, people buying a Switch likely own a PS4 already and are looking to supplement it. So how does this help Sony?

Well, consider the fact that the Switch is basically sold out at the moment. Someone goes to pick on up, 300 bucks in hand, and sees the shelves empty. Then they see a PS4 for two thirds that price, meaning they can get a game or two as well and still save money- why not go for that instead?

Given that the deal is only limited to one day, it’s unlikely to impact either PS4 or Switch sales much. But it’s just intriguing and amusing to see Sony and Nintendo competing with each other directly again.

[via NeoGAF]

The Nintendo Switch is largely expected to do well, in spite of what many enthusiasts may perceive as negative sentiment around the new system. This is because with the larger mainstream audience, the system and its central concept have both been undeniably successful, catching everyone’s imagination, and presenting an undeniably slick and smartly messaged product.

We already know that pre-orders for the system are sold out just about everywhere– however, there may be even more to the story than just that. According to TheGG, Swedish retailer Webhallen are stating that Switch pre-orders are already outpacing PS4 launch day sales- at least as far as their own tracking goes in both cases.

“We are only in January, but 2017 already looks to be Nintendo’s year,” Webhallen said on their Facebook page. “The Nintendo Switch already has more pre-orders than PS4 launch day sales. The entire first shipment for March is sold out, but we recommend you to keep checking back, so you can get your hands on any future shipments.”

This is particularly impressive because the Switch is most egregiously overpriced in Europe, and Nintendo has always traditionally been weak in Europe, while PlayStation has been strongest there- the fact that it is still outpacing the PS4 there is truly impressive. There may be more to the Switch’s commercial potential than many would have thought.