Game industry business news

Launch lineup 'stronger than predecessors', claims Sony

Nintendo has suspended its Swapnote service (aka Nintendo Letter Box) for the 3DS after discovering some consumers have been using the messaging app to exchange offensive” photographic material. The company explains on its website that some users, including minors, have been exchanging friend codes on the Internet and then using …

Nintendo has released new lifetime numbers for a batch of its best-selling first-party 3DS titles. Animal Crossing: New Leaf is the clear leader of the pack with 6.35m units sold. It took the game less than a year from its original Japan launch to reach the figure. Behind it, Luigi’s …

Obsidian’s upcoming South Park RPG The Stick of Truth will no longer arrive before the end of the year. Publisher Ubisoft has announced the oft-delayed game is being pushed back yet again – this time to March 4th, 2014. The title had previously been dated for December 10thafter missing multiple …

The controversial HMV music download app is back on iOS although its key bit of functionality has been cut. The app hit the headlines last week when it was revealed that users could use it to purchase and download music and have it automatically added to their iTunes library – …

Quarterly sales and profits at Puzzle & Dragons developer and publisher GungHo have fallen 12 per cent to $238m during the last quarter, according to the company’s latest financials. As reported bySerkan ToTo, sales only fell slightly by five per cent to $424m compared to the previous quarter. It was …

The Tiger Woods brand could return to a video game near you sooner than you think. EA announced earlier this week that it had reached a mutual decision” with Woods to end his run of appearances on the cover of its PGA Tour Golf series. Now the golfer’s agent Mark …

2009 action outing Resident Evil 5 is now Capcom’s best selling game ever. It has overtaken the 6.3m sales of 1992 SNES release Street Fighter II to claim the crown and also leads the likes of Resident Evil 6 (5.2m), Resident Evil 2 (4.96m), Monster Hunter Freedom 3 (4.8m) and …

Sony’s PlayStation division has reported an 800m operating loss (5m) for the quarter ending September. In the same period last year it saw operating income of 2.3bn (14.6m), a disparity Sony blamed on hardware price reductions and exchange rate fluctuations. PlayStation revenues for the period grew five per cent year-on-year …

First game to use feature on next-gen console will be Arrowhead's top-down shooter Helldivers