Sony and Tencent’s Sixjoy acquire a combined 30.34% of Elden Ring game company FromSoftware; FromSoftware’s parent Kadokawa retains the remaining 69.66% (Chris Scullion/Video Games Chronicle)

Cheri Faulkner / NME:
Netflix announces its first in-house game studio, its second game studio in Helsinki, to be led by ex-Zynga Vice President and General Manager Marko Lastikka  —  The studio will be responsible for delivering “a variety of delightful and deeply engaging original games”

Tom Warren / The Verge:
Microsoft announces the 28-inch Surface Studio 2+ with Intel’s 11th Gen i7, Nvidia’s RTX 3060, Dolby Vision, and 1TB, available for $4,299 or $4,499  —  It’s been a long time since Microsoft updated its Surface Studio line of all-in-one PCs.  While rumors had suggested a Surface Studio 3 was on the way …

Jennifer Pattison Tuohy / The Verge:
Ring adds end-to-end encryption to its battery-powered doorbells, expanding on support for its hardwired and plug-in devices; some features are disabled  —  Ring users can now keep their video completely private at the cost of some conveniences  —  Ring is now offering end-to-end encryption …

Jeanny Yu / Bloomberg:
Tencent is no longer China’s most valuable company after its shares dropped 64% since Jan. 2021, wiping $623B in market value, more than any other firm globally  —  Tencent Holdings Ltd. has lost its title as China’s biggest company to liquor giant Kweichow Moutai Co., the latest sign …

Amanda Silberling / TechCrunch:
Netflix VP of Gaming Mike Verdu says the company is “seriously exploring a cloud gaming offering” and plans to open a new gaming studio in Southern California  —  At TechCrunch Disrupt, Netflix VP of Gaming Mike Verdu dropped two bits of news about the streaming giant’s foray into games.

Ben Jiang / South China Morning Post:
Sensor Tower: Tencent earned $4.4B revenue from its apps in H1 2022, the highest globally; ByteDance was second with $1.3B, demonstrating China’s market power  —  Tencent Holdings and ByteDance were the world’s top-ranked companies by app revenue in the first half of 2022, according to a new report …