Blaze has confirmed that it has sold one million Evercade cartridges since the platform launched back in 2020.
"This milestone has been achieved thanks to the continued growth of the Evercade platform, the quality of retro and indie game licences, and the recent hardware launches from both Evercade and the HyperMegaTech! brands encouraging sales," says the company in a press release published today.
"The figure represents a massive milestone for Blaze as an independent UK company, highlighting that the demand for titles that helped form the video games industry - from early adopters to much younger players - and new modern-retro indie games is strong, especially with the collectability of Evercade’s physical cartridges echoing an era of tremendous growth and popularity in interactive entertainment."
There's more good news, too – the recently-announced Tomb Raider Collection 1 has become the "fastest-selling cartridge in Evercade’s five-year history."
Finally, there's the confirmation that games industry veteran Dominic Wheatley has joined Blaze as Chairman.
"Wheatley is best known as the co-founder and CEO of games publisher Eidos, launching the incredibly successful Tomb Raider and Championship Manager franchises," says Blaze. "He took over as CEO of the Catalis Group in 2012, building it up to over 2,300 staff across multiple countries. He is now a Director of the Catalis Group, which includes indie game publisher Curve Games and outsource service provider Testronic."
Wheatley will join CEO Andrew Byatt and the wider Blaze Entertainment team to "help the company grow into new markets."
Here's what the vet had to say about the announcement:
When I was introduced to the Blaze team and found what they had created I was so impressed. The design and power of the hardware and the slate of games they had managed to licence already was awesome. I got down on my knees and began to pray. When they asked me to join them I was like ‘Hell yeah!”
Blaze is launching the Evercade EXP-R and Evercade VS-R later this year, as well as the as-yet-unannounced Alpha system.