"Game On" is The Fly's weekly recap of the stories powering up or beating down video game stocks.

NEW RELEASES: This week's major new game release is Ubisoft's (UBSFY) "Hyper Scape," a free-to-play first-person battle royale title. The game launches on August 11 for PC, PlayStation 4 (SNE), and Xbox One (MSFT). Also out this week is Electronic Arts' (EA) "EA Sports UFC 4," a mixed martial arts fighting simulation. The game rolls out August 14 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

ACTIVISION BLIZZARD EARNINGS: Last week, Activision Blizzard (ATVI) reported better-than-expected second quarter results, with both earnings per share and net bookings beating consensus estimates. In addition, the company reported upbeat guidance for both the third quarter and fiscal 2020. Of note, Activision said on its quarterly conference call that the results were driven by in-game purchases for "Call of Duty: Warzone" as well as "World of Warcraft" and that the company has "strong momentum" going into the second half of the year.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg's Jason Schreier a day later reported that hundreds of employees at the company's Blizzard Entertainment are using the game maker's Slack network to organize a list of workplace requests, such as fair play and more sick time. Results of the effort were expected to be presented to executives last week, with a draft version of the list requesting changes to how promotions are given, increased vacation time, and pay raises for members of customer service and quality assurance departments, Schreier noted. "We will continue to adapt our compensation to build and keep the workforce our company needs today and tomorrow," Dustin Blackwell, a spokesman for Blizzard, told Bloomberg via email last week. "We understand that some Blizzard employees have specific requests, and we look forward to hearing from them directly."

NINTENDO EARNINGS: Nintendo (NTDOY) also reported quarterly results last week, reporting a 428% year-over-year increase in first quarter profits and a 108% year-over-year increase in net sales. The Japanese game maker noted that it sold 5.7M Switch units in the quarter, up from 2.1M in the same quarter last year, and that it sold 10.6M units of "Animal Crossing: New Horizons" in Q1. Since its release in March of this year, "Animal Crossing" has sold 22.4M total units, according to Nintendo.

Meanwhile, Bloomberg's Takashi Mochizuki reported on Thursday that Nintendo is boosting its target for Switch production to roughly 25M units this fiscal year, as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic continues to lift demand as component shortages ease. The company, which in April increased orders to 22M units by March next year, is asking partners to add an additional few million units of the gaming system, Mochizuki said, noting that assembly partners intend to operate at maximum capacity through December. The author added that the new production target indicates Nintendo is likely to outperform its Switch sales forecast of 19M units for the current fiscal year.

OTHER STORIES TO WATCH :

• EA Access, Electronic Arts' subscription service for PC games, will soon become available on Valve's Steam.
• Microsoft's upcoming cloud gaming service xCloud will not be available on Apple's (AAPL) iOS devices because Apple isn't able to review each title that's available through Microsoft's Xbox Game Pass subscription service, Business Insider's Ben Gilbert reported.
• Meanwhile, The Verge's Tom Warren said that Microsoft will allow Game Pass Ultimate subscribers to try out a beta of xCloud on August 11 on Android (GOOG) devices.
• In other Xbox news, leaked photos obtained by The Verge seem to confirm earlier rumors that Microsoft will unveil its second, cheaper next-generation Xbox gaming system this month, and it appears as though the console will be called the Xbox Series S.