 This is Witch Based News for Friday the 8th of December 2023, I'm CMDR Buur. In Elite Dangerous News this week, a new research report looks at the future of F-Dev and touches on Elite Dangerous and we get clarification on the interim stability patch and update 18. You know how this bit goes, please like, subscribe and ding that little bell so that YouTube shows you all our content and if you'd like to directly help our work here at the Burpit you can also support us through Patreon, links to that and everything else are in the description below. Further hints came to light this week about Frontier's future and the path ahead for Elite Dangerous with F-Dev's official stockbroker in the city, Liberum, producing an analyst research report off the back of the company's announced refocus of going back to basics that we were reported on last week. Analyst research notes are usually written to contain time sensitive information that investors can find useful for trading of a company's shares and it has to be said these notes often walk a thin line between company research and marketing materials but they do offer a slightly more in-depth view of a company's current financial situation. As part of their latest research note Liberum are reporting that they see Elite Dangerous still running and continuing to generate revenue for Frontier through to 2026 at the very least which is really encouraging to see and underlines Frontier's stated Holy Trinity policy of develop, release and nurture which has served them so well in the past. It's clear from Liberum's reported numbers that despite its age and technical problems in recent years Elite Dangerous still generates a good enough chunk of change for Frontier. It certainly appears that Elite although one of the smaller earners now in their portfolio still earns we think around 4 million pounds a year and naturally particularly at the moment Fdev would be unwise to ignore that revenue. You may recall last week that Frontier publicly stated that going forward they would be refocusing the company into genres where they had seen significant success before, predominantly creative management simulations such as the Jurassic World, Zoo and Coaster theme park games but also that they would be continuing to develop and support their other existing titles F1, Sigma and of course Elite Dangerous. Following the announced refocus Frontier are now developing three creative management sims for release over the next three financial years so the report we've seen believes that it is unlikely that Elite Dangerous will see another paid expansion much before 2027 given the company's refocus towards those CMS games. Fdev are undoubtedly in a tricky situation right now with further proof surfacing this week when the long-time Elite Dangerous developers and live stream semi-regulars Tom Cool and Robin McGovern both took to Twitter to announce that along with so many others at the beleaguered Cambridge developers their jobs were also under threat as part of Fdev's ongoing slimming down process following the disastrous release of Age of Sigma Realms of Ruin. To put that into perspective the research note from Liberum already touches on a significant downgrade in Sigma's earnings from the previously expected £27M to just £6M for financial year 24. It'll be fascinating to see how well that new estimate ages in the coming months ahead. A key takeaways from all of this are that as things stand you can be confident that Elite Dangerous will be here for the foreseeable future. As they've already stated Frontier do intend to in their words support and develop the game. Of course what shape the development part of that statement takes remains to be seen and it's going to be driven by what remains of the company after they've completed the slimming down process they're currently engaged in. As we've said before the key element in that slimming down is of course that it involves real people with real impact on their lives and it's therefore imperative that that process takes precedent over anything else right now. The next major corporate benchmark for the company is the interim report detailing how the restructure process has performed which is due in January. As we've reported previously we do think it extremely likely that comms from Fdev will be on a greatly reduced schedule at the very least before that report is published. Once that report is in the clear we very much look forward to hearing more from Frontier on Elite's future and where we all go next. We reached out this week to Frontier to check on the status of the interim patch and the expected update 18 and we're very happy to confirm that those two items are still being delivered to the game but given what they're wading through at the moment there's understandably no current schedule available. When we hear any further developments we will of course let you know right here. What are you currently doing in Elite Dangerous right now and what would you like to see arrive in update 18? Let us know in the comments below. That's it for now. Thanks very much for watching. We'll be back later this week with more videos. Until then 07 Commanders, follow the Greens on the way out and do keep clear of the toast rack. We very much look forward to seeing you next time.