Panasonic announced at gamescom 2021 a 4-watt speaker system for gamers that’s designed to be worn on the shoulders. The SoundSlayer immersive gaming speaker system, due in October, was designed with Square Enix for gamers, with a wide sound field and three modes -- first-person shooter, role-playing and voice -- to enhance the gaming experience, said the company Wednesday. Price wasn’t given.

Nvidia estimates the population of livestreaming gamers will soon exceed 700 million globally, while “the audience for global esports will soon approach half a billion people,” said Chief Financial Officer Colette Kress on an earnings call Wednesday for fiscal Q2 ended Aug. 1. Nvidia recorded $3.1 billion in gaming revenue for the quarter, up 11% sequentially from Q1 and 85% higher than in the year-earlier quarter, she said. Record revenue of $6.51 billion in Q2 was up 68% from a year earlier. Nvidia expects $6.8 billion in revenue, plus or minus 2%, for Q3 ending October, which would be a 44% increase year over year at the midpoint of the guidance. "Gaming demand is continuing to exceed supply as we expect channel inventories to remain below target levels as we exit Q3," said Kress.

The advent of streaming expands the addressable market for games by eliminating the need for a console, Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter wrote investors Thursday in a gaming trends report. May U.S. console and handheld software sales were $190 million, up 19% year on year, beating Wedbush's $173 million estimate, though supply constraints continued to limit sales of PlayStation 5 and Xbox consoles. The analyst expects a dramatic expansion of games platforms similar to Roblox, where creators display content and monetize from interaction with other creators or with users. Advertising will play a larger role in the category as a “dramatic expansion of ad delivery technology” results in more in-game ads, he said. In addition, business models will evolve to incorporate free-to-play, premium and cross-platform play to make games “ubiquitous.” He cited recent acquisitions including Skillz’s buy of Aarki allowing Skillz to combine first-party data with Aarki’s machine learning for targeted ads; Take-Two’s buy of mobile games developer Nordeus with more than 240 million users, and EA’s announced acquisition of mobile games studio Playdemic whose Golf Clash is estimated to generate around $200 million annually.

Apple added 30 titles to its $5 monthly Arcade gaming service, taking the number of games in the library to over 180, it said Friday. New exclusive original games include NBA 2K21 Arcade Edition, Star Trek: Legends and The Oregon Trail; new categories are timeless classics and app store greats. Arcade is also available bundled as part of the Apple One Individual ($14.95), Family ($19.95) and Premier ($29.95) monthly plans.

The latest Microsoft and Sony game consoles, in short supply and steep demand since their Q4 launches, were still commanding selling prices Friday on eBay that were multiples of list, we found. The Blu-ray version of the PlayStation 5 ($499) was bringing in high-three and low four-figure “buy it now” prices a month after Christmas. Seller salesquota posted a “buy it now” price of $1,399 for a "brand new" console disc version, or $59 over 24 months with PayPal Credit. The listing was viewed 346 times in an hour. Salesquota sold more than 60 of the PS5 disc consoles since mid-December for as high as $1,749 four days before Christmas. Price range for the past week was $1,399-$1,499. Seller papastreasure had a buy it now price of $999 for the console disc version, also brand new. In the Microsoft camp, the $499 Xbox Series X was shown as out of stock Friday at Best Buy, GameStop, Target and Walmart. On eBay, the scaled-down Xbox Series S, $299 without a Blu-ray player, had a buy it now price of $559 from eBay seller poofyo101jumpmansneakers, with 409 viewings per hour; the high-end X Series box was shown as $1,099. The seller had more than 10 of the game systems available and had sold 52, most for $599 and $1,099, according to the seller’s history. On Walmart’s Twitter feed, meanwhile, several customers looked past an ad for Samsung’s Galaxy S21 smartphone, due to ship in a week, using the comment section to lobby for both of the game consoles instead, with a bias toward Sony: “1 word PS5,” tweeted @TheRandome0_0, and “How bout you make the ps5 easier to get,” said @urfkngey. In response to a disheartened consumer, PlayStation tweeted Wednesday: "I understand how frustrated you must be.I can assure you we're working hard to meet the high demand for a PS5. We're grateful for our fans and are working hard to bring players the next generation of PlayStation. We recommend you keep checking with local retailers for availability." A chat rep at the Microsoft e-commerce store told us Friday on Xbox Series X availability: "I'm afraid we don't have units in stock at this moment, we're not expecting to have more stock till around Mar-Apr 2021."