Game industry business news

Microsoft has confirmed that the recently released playable demo for Capcom’s massively hyped survival horror sequel Resident Evil 5 has been downloaded 1.8m times by European and North American gamers. The demo was first released on January 26th, though was available exclusively to Xbox Live Gold members until January 29th, …

Market analysts have today insisted that the global recession will not lead to the end of the current High Street model as we know it, and that the future of UK shopping has a place for both nationals and independents. In its latest white paper, the KPMG/Synovate Retail Think Tank …

Four weeks filled with iPhone interviews and features on Developâ??s sister site

The Daily Mail is targeting the games industry yet again this morning as the UK newspaper reports on a new study that claims video games, the internet and TV are to blame for ‘the lurch to more and more violence which we know can breed violence and increase mental illness”. …

Paramount has announced its new SVP of videogames following the departure of Sandi Isaacs last year – former Kuju America boss John Kavanagh. Kavanagh, who was also previously VP of product development at Eidos, will oversee all aspects of Paramount Digital Entertainment’s video game group – which includes development and …

Nintendo’s Wii Fit has secured a third consecutive week at the top of the UK charts this week – its seventh week in total at number one. It has become Nintendo’s second best chart-topper – Pokemon Gold also made it to No.1 a total of seven times in 2001. Wii …

New games based on the Bourne books by Robert Ludlum are to be made by EA. The publisher has forged a deal with Ludlum Entertainment, the company which manages the deceased author’s estate, after Activision-Blizzard jettisoned the licence after acquiring Vivendi Games last year. With the exclusive worldwide licence in …

A new report from brands and marketing agency Vitrue claims that Xbox was the fifth most discussed brand on social networking sites in 2008. The company compiled its results by monitoring online conversations across a number of social networking sites, measuring the frequency in which a number of blue-chip” brands …

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Combined video game software unit sales across the world’s three largest games markets grew 11 percent in calendar year 2008 to 409.9 million – up from the 367.7 million units recorded in 2007. The data comes in new findings from Top Global Markets, the integrated monthly report from leading providers …