With Bungie under its wing, Sony plans to invest half of its PlayStation Studios development budget in live games this year – TechCrunch

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Happy Friday, Crunchers! It is May 27, 2022, and we are embarking on a long weekend, because here in the United States is Remembrance Day weekend. There is no newsletter on Monday – Haje goes to Sonoma’s wine tasting, and Christine plans to spend Monday sitting on the couch, doing absolutely nothing that we celebrate with all our hearts. See you here again on Tuesday!

Not sure what to do this weekend? Check out this review of all the amazing podcasts we’ve published this week. This will keep you busy for at least a few hours. – Hi and Christine

TechCrunch Top 3

• Golden goose: Manish was passionate today, writing not one but two of our best stories of the day. The first is for Jar, an Indian fintech company that is looking for a $ 50 million Serie B round. The country’s citizens have bank accounts to save money, but Jar helps them do something they may not be familiar with – invest. And the company chose to start with something that the Indians love, gold.
• Revolving door: Manish’s second story is about another Manish – Manish Maheshwari, the former head of Twitter India, who left the startup he co-founded after just six months. Our Manish announced in December that Maheshwari had left his Twitter post to start edtech company Invact Metaversity with Tanai Pratap. The agreement did not appear to be as planned, with some problems with the company, including bringing the product out the door and some disagreements with management.
• Sometimes it is not meant to be: In the case of Substack, a new round of capital. Horses considered the details yesterday of their attempts to raise the C-Series, but then canceled it when there were no favorable conditions with investors. today Alex removes some of the onion layers to explain why Substack’s 2021 Series-based promotion targets are not doing well in the 2022 investment environment.

Startup and VC

Earlier this week, Anita announced that Adam “WeWork” Neumann is back with a fresh start and increased support from a16z. In today’s Chain Reaction podcast, Anita and Lucas discuss whether Neumann really deserves $ 70 million and another chance. We are completely confused as to why someone would bet on him again and we will no doubt keep a close eye on his new start.

A few more gems for you:

Drive or diesel

Diesel prices alone drive about 17% of the inflation we see today, and Tim writes an exciting piece about how petrol and diesel may not be the best, especially given that the economy is peering over the cliff into a precipice whose depth is equal to our general optimism about the climate at the moment.

Maybe that’s exactly what is needed: maybe when economic and climate interests come together, we’ll find the pot with “yes, we can live on this planet for a few more years” at the end of the rainbow.

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Big Tech Inc.

• Sony’s live service plans: Sony offers all of its live service offerings. This was followed by the acquisition of Bungie by the company earlier this year. Sony set out plans this week for the life of its company after the acquisition, which includes a major investment in the live gaming industry, although it did not go into detail about which of the franchises will receive treatment.
• Contact him: We thought Snapchat was just individuals sending small “pictures” to other people, but the social media giant has bigger plans than that. Its quick new feature, Shared Stories, is a reef of its Custom Stories feature to allow users to, well, see where we’re going with this. Here’s how it works: Users added to a group can also add their friends to make it easier to share their stories. Don’t worry, if someone from the group is not your cup of tea, your stories will not be shared with him.
• Database failure: Voto Consulting, a talent training company in New Jersey, has learned the hard way about what happens when you don’t password protect a database and leave it online. The CVs and personal information of about 30,000 workers were revealed. Like Zak reports, the story becomes much more interesting – something you really have to check for yourself.
• Driving time: In today’s transport news, Rivian opened the lid and rearranged some things with the company’s engine (yes, we know it’s an electric vehicle) to hire a new chief operating officer Frank Klein. This comes amid some other changes in leadership, as the head of production said goodbye. Tesla, meanwhile, says it will not open a manufacturing plant in India until it can first sell and service vehicles in the country. Manish describes the transition-forward that is happening between the country and the company: The country’s employees want the cars to be manufactured locally and Tesla to follow its high import duties. Tesla still does not want to pay higher fees if the market is not tested well. So super fun stagnation.