Game industry business news

IGN is reporting that Rockstar has dated Manhunt 2’s UK release for October 31st, 2008. The title will arrive on Wii, PS2 and PSP on the date – which is exactly a year after the game was released in the US. The game is the edited second edition of the …

Nintendo has confirmed that new downloadable and boxed software for its DSi console will be region-locked. A spokesperson for the firm told CVG: "DSi software (software that is only compatible with DSi) is region locked, eg: European DSi software can only be played on European DSi consoles. "Nintendo DS software …

Credit crunch? What credit crunch? Wall Street worries aren’t stemming the flow of cash into the games industry – I-Play onwer Oberon Media has just scored a $20m boost from a Chinese investor. The Infinity I-China Fund has stepped up to help Oberon with its push into the Chinese gaming …

E For All Expo, held in Los Angeles over the weekend, attracted 15,000 visitors. That’s according to organiser IDG World Expo, which has called the event a great success”. "E for All 2008 was all about connecting great game companies with gamers and gamers with great games, and we’re happy …

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has singled out the firm’s Xbox business as its one recent unqualified success”. Despite some negative questioning in today’s San Jose Mercury News interview, Ballmer remained positive – saying that Xbox Live in particular was going gangbusters”. Ballmer called 360 a home run” before sticking up …

Cross-platform effects sequencer approved by Sony and Nintendo

But without backroom staff or buying muscle, how do you expect Asda – which has 12 months to go on a two-year EUK deal – to handle Christmas alone? Same goes for Sainsbury’s, Zavvi and Morrisons. Some publishers say they’re waiting for Woolworths to collapse and take EUK with it. …

Asda has asked around 15 of its entertainment distributors to set up direct accounts, should its relationship with Woolworths-owned buying team EUK ‘suddenly deteriorate’. And the supermarket has even admitted that it could be tempted into buying EUK as a last resort. That’s according to Cue Entertainment, which reports that …

If naming all PAL territories were a pub quiz question, the Middle East would be the answer everyone would be kicking themselves for forgetting come the pint’n’pig snacks break. With piracy and typically harsh censorship rife, it’s little wonder that the region has never won status as a particular priority …

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has detailed some of the functions of the new DSi, whilst dismissing the idea that the product is reaction to the success of iPhone or the technologoical ability of PSP. In an interview with Nikkei Net, Iwata said that instead the goal was to make the …