Game industry business news

FIFA 09 surges past 2m UK sales

EA is celebrating a dual Christmas triumph – after FIFA 09 took the official Christmas No.1 spot in the All Formats chart and sailed past two million UK sales. The title returned to the top of the GFK-ChartTrack/ELSPA All Formats Top 40 this week, following a post-Christmas sales jump – …

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Tenth EVE expansion set for March

Independent MMO developer CCP has confirmed that the tenth free expansion for its globally popular MMO EVE Online will arrive on March 10th – the same day that Atari brings the first boxed iteration of the game to retail. EVE Online: Apocrypha sees a network of unstable wormholes open across …

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Resistance Retribution dated

SCEE has revealed that Bend Studios’ PSP FPS Resistance Retribution will be released in Europe on March 13th, VG247 reports. Retribution is the first foray for the series on PSP – indeed, it is the first time Sony’s brand has appeared on any format other than PS3. Unlike its console …

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GameStop celebrates record festive sales

North American and global games retailer GameStop has posted some strong numbers for its festive sales period, showing that the company enjoyed its best ever performance for the nine weeks ending January 3rd. Sales for the firm totalled $2,856m, up 22.3 per cent from the $2,335m seen in the same …

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Square to help Ubisoft conquer Japan

Square Enix has announced a new partnership with Ubisoft Japan which will see the Final Fantasy publisher distributing Ubisoft titles exclusively in the territory. This arrangement is due to begin in April. The company’s president Yoichi Wada said: The global video game market is expected to maintain sustainable growth thanks …

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Woolworths closure was unnecessary

Woolworths’ largest shareholder Ardeshir Naghshineh has called the demise of the retailer unnecessary”, and talked of his frustration over the collapse. Naghshineh has also talked of the terrible shame” of 30,000 people losing their jobs – as administrator Deloitte profits from the retailer’s downfall. He told Sky: "It seems a …

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The Godfather II hits UK on March 6th

Electronic Arts has announced that The Godfather II will be released in the UK on March 6th, as well as revealing new in-game content that will be exclusive to anyone who pre-orders the title. Consumers who pre-order from selected retailers will be given an exclusive crew member to hire into …

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Budget’s PC boost

We ask: * Garry Williams, Business Development Director, Mastertronic; * Simon Reynolds, European Games Director, Avanquest Software; * Craig Johnson, Managing Director, Focus Multimedia;* Paul Andrews, Chief Executive, Entain8.Industry pundits have been predicting the death of the PC market for years, but it seems that budget is playing a key …

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Sainsburys enjoys best ever Christmas

Sainsbury’s has announced that it enjoyed its best ever Christmas period, boasting strong performance and healthy increases in sales during the third quarter of its financial year. The supermarket reported that total sales for the three months ended January 3rd had risen by 4.8 per cent, or 5.3 per cent …

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Big Fish bringing Mystery Case Files to DS

Big Fish Games’ popular hidden object series Mystery Case Files is to make the move to consoles with the release of Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir on Nintendo’s portable DS on February 6th. MCV’s sister site CasualGaming.biz has the full story – click here to take a look.

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