Pixel P&L: Tencent’s Olympic Asia Deal, Ubisoft Crash, Battlefield Beats CoD

Welcome to another Pixel P&L edition. This issue takes 5 minutes to read. If you only have one, here are the 5 most important things:

• Tencent Esports locks in a ten-year Olympic Council of Asia partnership, moving from participant to system architect.

• Ubisoft shares crashed 33% to a 14-year low after canceling six games.

• Battlefield 6 outsells Call of Duty for the first time ever in the US market.

• Xbox's Fable reboot finally gets a release window: autumn 2026 across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation 5.

• Fallout Season 2 becomes Prime Video's sixth most-watched series.

Let's get into it.

Tencent Esports Secures Ten-Year Olympic Council of Asia Partnership

Tencent Esports has secured a ten-year partnership with the Olympic Council of Asia, becoming the organization's official esports technology partner. The deal, formalized at the OCA's October 2025 Executive Board Meeting in Bahrain, expands a relationship that began in 2022.

Under the agreement, Yati Zhang, Director of Tencent Esports, will serve as OCA Esports Manager, overseeing event development across the continent. The partnership targets deeper integration between esports and traditional sports throughout Asia.

"This partnership is not just an upgrade in title, but a unification of responsibility," said Dr. Husain Al-Musallam, OCA Director General. "It signals that Asian esports has moved from an era of participation to one of system co-construction."

The collaboration builds on their joint work for the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou. Tencent has pursued aggressive esports expansion recently, including a February 2025 partnership with the Esports World Cup Foundation for China market development and a July 2025 VALORANT Mobile esports launch in China.

Ubisoft Shares Plunge 33% Following Restructuring Announcement

Ubisoft's stock dropped 33% Thursday morning to €4.36, its lowest price in over 14 years, after the company announced a major restructuring plan. The French publisher will split its creative operations into five divisions while canceling six games and delaying seven others.

The company expects a €1 billion operating loss for the fiscal year ending March 2026, including a €650 million write-down from the restructure. Among the canceled projects is the Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time remake.

Ubisoft now plans to cut an additional €200 million in fixed costs over two years. CFO Frederick Duguet said some employees would move to other projects while "some may leave the company," though the publisher declined to specify potential layoff numbers.

The stock has fallen 95.9% from its July 2018 peak of €107.90, when releases like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Far Cry 5 drove strong performance. The restructuring follows years of underperforming launches and a recent minority stake sale to Tencent.

⚡️Quick Bytes

Battlefield 6 Outsells Call of Duty for First Time in US

Battlefield 6 topped US sales in 2025, marking the first time the franchise outsold Call of Duty in a calendar year, according to Circana. EA's shooter ranked first overall, while Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 placed fifth behind NBA 2K26, Borderlands 4, and Monster Hunter: Wilds. Black Ops 7 launched on Xbox Game Pass six weeks after Battlefield 6's release, which drew over 7 million players in three days making it the series' biggest launch.

Fallout Season 2 Becomes Prime Video's Sixth Most-Watched Series

Fallout's second season ranks as Prime Video's sixth most-watched series four weeks after its December 16 premiere, trailing both Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power seasons, Reacher seasons two and three, and Fallout's first season. The show holds a 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating, surpassing season one's 93%. Concurrent Fallout players on Steam doubled to 40,000 since the premiere. Amazon renewed the series for season three in May 2025.

Xbox's Fable Reboot Launches Fall 2026 on Xbox, PC, and PlayStation

Playground Games revealed its Fable reboot will release autumn 2026 across Xbox, PC, and PlayStation 5. The open-world RPG features over 1,000 named NPCs with individual routines and a reputation system tracking player actions. Game director Ralph Fulton described the game as "fairytale, not fantasy," emphasizing intimate storytelling over grand political narratives. The reboot marks the franchise's first entry since Lionhead Studios closed in 2016.

⚔️Side Quest

🤣Laugh:

📺 Watch: The latest Xbox Direct is well worth watching: You get extended looks at Forza Horizon 6's Japan setting with player-built estates, Double Fine's bizarre pottery brawler Kiln where pot shapes determine attacks, and the Fable reboot with 1,000 named NPCs and permanent world consequences. 

🎮 Play: Dwarves: Glory, Death and Loot is what happens when roguelite loot addiction meets auto-battler chaos. You build a dwarf army, min-max their gear, and watch them smash orcs in increasingly ridiculous formations. If you've ever wondered what a dwarven murder spreadsheet looks like, this is it.

📚 Read: Cure: A Hospital Simulator cracked the discoverability problem most indie studios can't afford to solve. How? By letting Twitch viewers become NPCs in streamers' games with a single chat command. The result: 116,000 watched hours on zero marketing budget. Read how a former games journalist reverse-engineered what makes content creators organically embrace certain games.

💡Did You Know

Did you know that before Microsoft acquired Activision Blizzard in 2023, the publisher's 2022 annual report revealed a striking revenue split? The company behind Call of Duty, Diablo, Warcraft, and Overwatch earned 78% of its revenue from in-game purchases, subscriptions, and services. Only 22% came from actually selling games, whether physical or digital copies.

📜 Quote of the Day

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