| Date | Event | Ref. |
|---|
| January 10 | Bungie terminated its publishing deal with Activision, maintaining rights to the Destiny series. | |
| January 30 | Nintendo ceases service operations of the Wii Shop Channel app for the Nintendo Wii. | [39] |
| February 4 | Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Arts surprise-released Apex Legends , a battle royale game that within a week gained 25 million players and challenged the dominance of Fortnite Battle Royale . | [40] |
| February 11–13 | Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences hosted the 2019 D.I.C.E. Summit and 22nd Annual D.I.C.E. Awards at the Aria Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Bonnie Ross was inducted into the AIAS Hall of Fame. | [41] [42] |
| February 12 | Activision Blizzard announced that despite a record quarter, it would be laying off about 8% or 775 positions, primarily from non-development sectors. | [43] |
| February 13 | THQ Nordic acquired Warhorse Studios. | [44] |
| March 18–22 | The 2019 Game Developers Conference was held in San Francisco. | |
| March 19 | Google revealed Stadia, a game streaming service. | |
| March 26 | Electronic Arts announced it would be cutting about 350 jobs or about 4% of its workforce. | [45] |
| March 28–31 | PAX East was held in Boston. | |
| March 31 | Dies irae and Silverio developer Light suspended activity as its parent company Greenwood dissolved. | [46] [47] |
| April 13–14 | The inaugural Twitchcon Europe was held in Berlin. | |
| April 15 | Reggie Fils-Aimé retired as president and CEO of Nintendo of America and was replaced by Doug Bowser. | [48] |
| May 1 | Epic Games acquired Rocket League developer Psyonix. | [49] |
| May 7 | Microsoft released the "All-Digital" version of the Xbox One S console, which lacks an optical drive for a lower price point. | [50] |
| May 10 | Sega acquired Two Point Studios, the creator of Two Point Hospital . | [51] |
| June 9 | Xbox Game Studios announced their acquisition of Double Fine, the developers of the Psychonauts series. | [52] |
| Microsoft announced their next-generation Xbox console, Project Scarlett. | |
| June 11–13 | E3 2019 was held in Los Angeles, California. | |
| June 18 | Kaz Hirai retired from Sony Corporation after serving the company for 35 years, most recently as CEO and chairman for 6 years. | [53] |
| June 19 | Popular streamer and YouTuber Etika disappeared; his body was discovered in the East River five days later in an act of suicide by drowning. | [54] [55] [56] |
| July 12 | Chiyomaru Studio acquired Science Adventure developer Mages. | [57] |
| July 26–28 | The inaugural Fortnite World Cup was held at Arthur Ashe Stadium in New York City. | |
| August 16–18 | The Pokémon World Championships was held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., United States. | [58] |
| August 19 | Worldwide Studios announced the acquisition of Insomniac Games for $229 million. The deal was completed on November 15. | [59] [60] [61] |
| August 20–24 | Gamescom 2019 was held in Cologne, Germany. | [62] |
| August 20–25 | The International 2019, the ninth iteration of the annual Dota 2 global esports tournament, was held in Shanghai. | [63] |
| August 28 | LCG Entertainment acquired the remaining assets of Telltale Games and relaunched it as a new company. | [64] |
| August 31 – September 3 | PAX West was held in Seattle. | |
| September 5 | Nintendo Switch Online adds Super Nintendo Entertainment System titles to it's library of emulated games. | [65] |
| September 12–15 | Tokyo Game Show was held in Chiba, Japan. | [66] |
| September 17 | Valve lost a lawsuit in France, requiring the company to allow users to resell games on Steam required by Directives from the European Union. | [67] [68] |
| September 19 | Apple Arcade, a game subscription service by Apple Inc., launched. | [69] |
| September 27–29 | TwitchCon was held at San Diego, California | |
| September 29 | The San Francisco Shock won the 2019 Overwatch League Grand Finals over the Vancouver Titans | |
| September 30 | Shawn Layden announced his departure as CEO of Worldwide Studios. | [70] |
| October 1 | Japanese developer AlphaDream filed for bankruptcy. | [71] |
| October 6–11 | Blizzard Entertainment dealt with fallout from issuing bans related to pro-Hong Kong speech at the Hearthstone Grandmasters event. | |
| October 11–13 | PAX Australia was held in Melbourne. | |
| October 25 | The defunct developer Light was revived to finish their Silverio series in a collaboration with Ares Co. and Nexton. | [47] |
| October 29 | Electronic Arts announced they would begin to publish games again on Valve's Steam service. They had originally stopped in 2011. | [72] |
| November 1–2 | BlizzCon was held at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. | |
| November 7 | Sony Interactive Entertainment announced that Hermen Hulst would become the new head of Worldwide Studios, while Shuhei Yoshida became the "Head of Independent Developer Initiative" at PlayStation. | [73] |
| November 13 | Human Head Studios closed down while transitioning its employees to the newly formed Roundhouse Studios under Bethesda Softworks. | [74] |
| November 27 | Facebook acquired Beat Games. | [75] |
| November 28 | Codemasters acquired Slightly Mad Studios for $30 million. | [76] |
| December 6 | Starbreeze Studios completed a year-long restructuring process. | [77] |
| December 12 | The Game Awards 2019 were held at Microsoft Theater in Los Angeles. | |
| Microsoft unveiled the design and name of their next-generation Xbox console previously known as Project Scarlett, the Xbox Series X, set for a late 2020 release. | |
| December 19 | Stadia Games and Entertainment acquired Typhoon Studios. | [78] |
