Game industry business news

US consumers spent an estimated $4.2bn on video games in Q3 overall – a year-on-year drop of 11 per cent. That figure represents money spent on hardware, content and accessories, according to the Q3 2011 US Games Market Dynamics report from The NPD Group. Buyers spent $1.3bn on new physical …

Your favourite MCV online content is now available as an app for phones powered by Google’s OS, sponsored by Shorewood Blueprint. To download our new Android app, simply visit this page on the Android Market – the app is completely free. It displays the top stories of the day, has …

Newly-named RPG Dream Drop Distance will bring Square Enix’s Kingdom Hearts franchise to 3DS in 2012. The game was originally announced as Kingdom Hearts 3D at E3 2010 and was featured in a list of major third-party franchises heading to Nintendo’s new handheld. As with previous Kingdom Hearts titles, it …

Free mini-game collection Ape Escape included in latest update

UK games retailers took a whopping 73.9m last week from game sales alone. In total 2,978,493 titles were sold last week. It’s up over the week before, although slightly down on the comparable week in 2010. But this year there’s still a full sales week to come, including a Saturday …

Brighton studio 'serious' about social and mobile gaming

It’s been live less than a week but Star Wars: The Old Republic could have as many as 1.5m users signed up already. EA’s subscription-based PC MMO went on sale in UK retailers today, although customers who pre-ordered it early have been able to log in and play it since …

City Interactive has announced more than 2m copies of Sniper: Ghost Warrior have been sold worldwide to date. The FPS was a surprise hit when it landed in the UK last year, quickly gunning for a position in the UK All Formats Top Ten. Sniper passed the 1m sales mark …

Japan launch sales beat PSP but down 50,000 units on 3DS

Transition from PS2 to PS3 were the 'darkest days' for studio, says co-president Evan Wells