Game industry business news

The NPD Group estimates that downloadable, social, mobile and other form of non-physical games took up to $400m in sales last month. The research firm’s data shows that hardware and boxed sales were down 34 per cent year-on-year in January – coincidentally also around the $400m mark. NPD analyst Liam …

Microsoft and Activision had the best performing products in the US last month. Xbox 360 was the top selling hardware for a sixth consecutive month, while Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 topped the best-selling games chart. However, the Top 10 games did not sell well enough to prevent sales …

A lack of new releases and the comparatively strong sales in 2011 saw the US video games market drop by almost $400m last month. NDP data shows that combined sales of hardware, software and accessories fell to $750.6m, down 34 per cent from the $1.14bn taken in January. Both software …

Skylanders is Activision’s biggest ever ‘new IP’ and ‘potentially a $1bn franchise.’ The new kids property – which is technically part of the Spyro franchise, but we’ll gloss over that – was 2011’s No.1 kids property, according to the publisher. It says that the toys alone has sold more than …

NDP data shows that UK consumers buy more video games – both boxed and downloadable – than those in France, Germany in the US. The research group reported that the split between physical and digital sales in Germany is nearly equal, although France is dominated by boxed sales. The UK …

There’s a healthy spate of new releases on shelves this week, including supernatural shooters, surreal puzzle games and sprawling RPGs. 2K Games’ The Darkness II follows up the success of the 2007 FPS, once again putting players in the shoes of Jackie Estacado, who takes on demons with both ordinary …

Activision Blizzard has posted record breaking revenue of $4.76bn for the financial year. $1.6bn of this was generated from digital markets. That’s 34 per cent of the company’s total revenues. The $4.76bn is well ahead of Activision’s projections (almost $800m more) and is up over the previous year’s $4.45bn. Net …

Michael Pachter predicts strong growth for social gaming company

Online indie ShopTo.net has seen its profit leap 254 per cent for the six months ending January 31st. The company says it has ‘defied’ the slowdown seen in games by posting record results. Its market share in hardware also leapt during the period, with sales of consoles accounting for 8m …

Industry trade body UKIE will publish a report next week outlining how to make crowd funding legal for UK games firms. It wants to change legislation so that publishers and other games companies can receive money from large numbers of individuals, in order to fund new projects. The news comes …