Game industry business news

Leading European video games retailer GAME has announced the appointment of Dave Hughes in the freshly created role chief marketing officer. Hughes joins from Marks & Spencer where he headed up online and direct sales channel M&S Direct. His former employers include KPMG, Sainsbury’s, Intercontinental Hotels and Galileo. At GAME …

Capcom’s popular Devil May Cry series has made its debut on the App Store. Devil May Cry 4: Refrain is available to download now, and is compatible with all of Apple’s mobile devices: iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. Unlike the upcoming reboot DmC – currently in development at Ninja Theory …

Killzone 3’s multiplayer beta is now available to all PS3 owners with an internet connection. The multiplayer demo has been made available from 11am this morning and runs until February 15th. It was previously exclusive to subscribers of Sony’s paid-for PSN Plus service. Gamers have access to four modes – …

Payne picked to lead NESTA-backed 'Games Consortium' - hunt begins for eight stakeholders

A bold new publisher owned by developers is to be run by Andy Payne. He will step away from his day-to-day duties at Mastertronic to lead the outfit currently called ‘The Games Consortium’. The Consortium is designed to build an operation for UK developers to publish their games digitally, and …

Japanese publisher and developer Square Enix has issued a stark warning about its expected performance for the current financial year, which closes at the end of March. It now predicts net income of Y1,000m, a massive 89 per cent year-on-year drop. It expects net sales to fall 32 per cent …

Capcom is the latest publisher to experiment with always-on DRM – this time bringing the controversial security measure to its latest PSN release. Bionic Commando Rearmed 2 will authenticate itself every time PS3 owners boot it up. The company previously used this anti-piracy mechanic with Final Fight: Double Impact, according …

Nordic Games will release two territory-specific We Sing games this spring. There are 30 tracks in We Sing Down Under and 40 in We Sing Deutsche Hits. Down Under features Rolf Harris’ ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down’, and Olivia Newton-John’s ‘Physical’. Deutsche Hits boasts Die Fantastischen Vier’s ‘Gebt Uns Ruhig Die …

In a quite cheeky bit of marketing, Bulletstorm devs People Can Fly have released a free FPS title that parodies Activision’s FPS series Call of Duty. Called Duty Calls, the 758MB download doesn’t take itself too seriously. In fact, here are some choice snippets of dialogue: "Here’s your objective: blah …

Sony has sold almost four million units in the UK alone. The platform holder expects to hit this sales milestone within the next few weeks, having seen strong hardware sales throughout the past year. The PS3 passed the three million sales mark last January, meaning a healthy one million units …