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

TechCrunch Newsletter
TechCrunch logo
The Daily Crunch logo

By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps

Friday, May 27, 2022

Happy Friday, Crunchers! It’s 27 May 2022, and we are slinking into a long weekend because it’s Memorial Day weekend here in the U.S. There’s no newsletter on Monday — Haje is going 🍷 wine tasting in Sonoma, and Christine is planning to spend Monday 🛋️ sitting on the sofa doing absolutely nothing, which we celebrate wholeheartedly. We’ll see you back here on Tuesday!

Not sure what to do this weekend? Check out this roundup of all the amazing podcasts we published this week. It’ll keep you busy for a few hours at least.  — Haje and Christine

 image

Image Credits: Bungie

The TechCrunch Top 3

  • Golden goose: Manish was on fire today, writing not one, but two of our top stories of the day. The first is about Jar, an Indian fintech company that is looking at a $50 million Series B round. The country’s citizens have bank accounts to save money, but Jar helps them do something they may not be as familiar with — invest. And the company has chosen to start with something Indians are known to love, gold.
  • Revolving door: Manish’s second story has to do with another Manish — Manish Maheshwari, the former head of Twitter India, who left a startup he co-founded after just 6 months. Our Manish reported in December that Maheshwari left his post at Twitter to start edtech company Invact Metaversity with Tanay Pratap. The arrangement didn’t seem to work out as planned, with some company hiccups involving getting product out the door and some leadership disagreements.
  • Sometimes it’s not meant to be: In Substack’s case, a fresh round of capital. Connie went over the details yesterday of them attempting to raise a Series C, but then calling it off when favorable terms with investors didn’t transpire. Today, Alex peels away some of the onion layers to explain why Substack’s goals, based on its Series B raise in 2021, didn’t translate well in 2022’s investment environment.

Come to any TechCrunch event and bring a friend for free

Sponsored by TechCrunch

Grab an attendee ticket to any of the events listed below and you’ll receive a second ticket free. TechCrunch events are always exciting and brimming with opportunity; they’re even more fun when you take a friend -- and even more affordable when you split the cost with them. In fact, now’s the time to book for your entire team as prices will never be this low again! Imagine how much more you’ll save, learn, network and grow your business.

Learn More

Startups and VC

Earlier this week, Anita reported that Adam “WeWork” Neumann is back with a new startup, and raised backing from a16z. In today’s Chain Reaction podcast, Anita and Lucas discuss whether Neumann truly deserves $70 million and another chance. We’re comprehensively confused why anyone would place another bet on him, and we’ll no doubt be following his new startup closely.

A few more gems for ya:

Ride or die-sel

Diesel prices alone are driving about 17% of the inflation we’re seeing today, and Tim writes a rousing piece about how gasoline and diesel are perhaps not the greatest, especially given that the economy is peeking over the cliff into an abyss whose depth equals our general optimism around climate at the moment.

Perhaps that’s exactly what’s needed: Maybe when economic and climate interests align, we find the pot of “yay we can live on this planet for a few more years” at the end of the rainbow.

(TechCrunch+ is our membership program, which helps founders and startup teams get ahead. You can sign up here.)

Read More

Ride or die-sel image

Image Credits: Bloomberg Creative / Getty Images

Big Tech Inc.

  • Sony’s live service plans: Sony is going all in on its live service offerings. This follows the company’s acquisition of Bungie earlier this year. Sony laid out plans this week for its company life after the acquisition, which includes investing heavily into the live service gaming sector, though it did not go into specifics on which of its franchises would get the treatment.
  • Snap to it: We thought Snapchat was just individuals pushing out small “snaps” to other individuals, but the social media giant has bigger plans than that. Its snappy new feature, “Shared Stories,” is a riff on its “Custom Stories” feature to enable users to, well, you can see where we are going with this. Here’s how it works: Users added to a group can add their friends, too, to make it easier to share their stories. Don’t worry, if someone in the friend group is not your cup of tea, your stories won’t be shared with them.
  • Database debacle: Voto Consulting, a New Jersey talent-acquisition firm, learned the hard way what happens when you don’t password-protect a database and leave it on the internet. The résumés and personal information from some 30,000 workers was exposed. As Zack reports, the story gets way more interesting — something that you really need to check out for yourself.
  • Drive time: In today’s transportation news, Rivian opened up its hood and rearranged some things with the company’s engine (yes, we know it’s an electric vehicle) in the way of hiring new COO Frank Klein. This comes amid some other leadership changes as its head of manufacturing said goodbye. Meanwhile, Tesla says it won’t open a manufacturing plant in India until it can first sell and service vehicles in the country. Manish lays out the back-and-forth going on between country and company: Country officials want cars to be built locally and for Tesla to follow its high import duties. Tesla doesn’t want to pay higher fees yet if the market doesn’t test well. Thus a superfun standstill.

Read more stories on TechCrunch.com

Newest Jobs from Crunchboard

See more jobs on CrunchBoard

Post your tech jobs and reach millions of TechCrunch readers for only $200 per month.

Facebook Twitter Youtube Instagram Flipboard

View this email online in your browser

Privacy Policy | Terms of Service | Unsubscribe

© 2022 Yahoo. All rights reserved. 110 5th St, San Francisco, CA 94103

Key phrases

Older messages

Despite regulatory hurdles, these 4 US cannabis investors are planting seeds for tomorrow

Friday, May 27, 2022

TechCrunch+ Newsletter TechCrunch+ logo TechCrunc+ Roundup logo By Walter Thompson Friday, May 27, 2022 Welcome to TechCrunch+ Friday Image Credits: JD and Kyle Shoot Stock / Getty Images The cannabis

[Limited Time] Bring a friend for free to TC Events

Friday, May 27, 2022

Time to throw your early stage startup hat into the ring! We love early-stage startups, Memorial Day weekend, summer and a great deal. So we're celebrating the convergence of our favorite things

In one of the largest tech deals ever struck, Broadcom will buy VMware for $61B

Thursday, May 26, 2022

TechCrunch Newsletter TechCrunch logo The Daily Crunch logo By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps Thursday, May 26, 2022 It's Thursday, May 26, 2022, and we have a busy day of news on the site today

Understand the science behind the global climate crisis

Thursday, May 26, 2022

Limited time: Bring a friend for free to TC Sessions: Climate this June TechCrunch Logo TC Sessions: Climate on June 14 and June 16 Understand the science behind the global environmental crisis

a16z literally doubles down, announces $4.5B crypto fund IV

Wednesday, May 25, 2022

TechCrunch Newsletter TechCrunch logo The Daily Crunch logo By Christine Hall and Haje Jan Kamps Wednesday, May 25, 2022 It's Wednesday the 25th of May, 2022, and we are devastated by the events of

You Might Also Like

SBF gets 25 years 

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Sam Bankman-Fried is sentenced View this email online in your browser By Christine Hall Thursday, March 28, 2024 Welcome back to TechCrunch PM! The editorial team spent a chunk of the day discussing

💎 Issue 410 - Being laid off in 2023-2024 as an early-career developer

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This week's Awesome Ruby Newsletter Read this email on the Web The Awesome Ruby Newsletter Issue » 410 Release Date Mar 28, 2024 Your weekly report of the most popular Ruby news, articles and

💻 Issue 403 - Microsoft defends .NET 9 features competing with open source ecosystem

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This week's Awesome .NET Weekly Read this email on the Web The Awesome .NET Weekly Issue » 403 Release Date Mar 28, 2024 Your weekly report of the most popular .NET news, articles and projects

💻 Issue 410 - Node.js TSC Confirms: No Intention to Remove npm from Distribution

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This week's Awesome Node.js Weekly Read this email on the Web The Awesome Node.js Weekly Issue » 410 Release Date Mar 28, 2024 Your weekly report of the most popular Node.js news, articles and

💻 Issue 410 - JSDoc as an alternative TypeScript syntax

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This week's Awesome JavaScript Weekly Read this email on the Web The Awesome JavaScript Weekly Issue » 410 Release Date Mar 28, 2024 Your weekly report of the most popular JavaScript news, articles

📱 Issue 404 - Dependency Injection for Modern Swift Applications Part II

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This week's Awesome iOS Weekly Read this email on the Web The Awesome iOS Weekly Issue » 404 Release Date Mar 28, 2024 Your weekly report of the most popular iOS news, articles and projects Popular

💻 Issue 328 - My new open-source repository to schedule all your content!

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This week's Awesome React Weekly Read this email on the Web The Awesome React Weekly Issue » 328 Release Date Mar 28, 2024 Your weekly report of the most popular React news, articles and projects

📱 Issue 407 - Apple just announced WWDC24. The keynote for WWDC24 will be held on Monday, June 10th.

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This week's Awesome Swift Weekly Read this email on the Web The Awesome Swift Weekly Issue » 407 Release Date Mar 28, 2024 Your weekly report of the most popular Swift news, articles and projects

💻 Issue 405 - 2024 Edition Update

Thursday, March 28, 2024

This week's Awesome Rust Weekly Read this email on the Web The Awesome Rust Weekly Issue » 405 Release Date Mar 28, 2024 Your weekly report of the most popular Rust news, articles and projects

🤖 What to Expect From Google I/O 2024 — How to Stop Apps From Leaking Your Data

Thursday, March 28, 2024

Also: The Best Camera Straps of 2024, and More! How-To Geek Logo March 28, 2024 📩 Get expert reviews, the hottest deals, how-to's, breaking news, and more delivered directly to your inbox by