Game industry business news

The will they/won’t they dance is over – Electronic Arts has decided to end its $2bn bid to acquire Take Two. EA CEO John Riccitiello’s decision to move away from the chance to combine businesses with the Rockstar Games parent comes after "careful consideration, including a management presentation and review …

Riccitiello's acquisition attempt aborted, but Take-Two is still considering "strategic alternatives" with other parties

German studio's Crysis titles on Valve's download service

How would you categorise the current relationship between the games industry’s PR community and the specialist press? Richard Eddy, Codemasters : At its best and most professional there’s an understanding and respect between both sides. We both strive to deliver the best story, the best assets and the best feature, …

Frustrated global sales analysts, rejoice; the leading charts authorities in the world are close to agreeing a new monthly report that will offer definitive sales data for ‘the whole planet’. The news comes after GFK-ChartTrack, NPD and Enterbrain launched the Top Global Markets Report last month – bringing together monthly …

Namco Bandai’s investment in Infogrames’ European and Asian distribution business will create an entirely new spin-off firm that could bring up to a quarter of the European trade’s games to market. That was the message from Infogrames CEO David Gardner as he revealed his company’s intentions to MCV. Namco Bandai …

It looks as though there’s going to be another wave of Xbox 360 price cuts in time for Christmas in the UK – at Woolworths, at least. According to a leaked scan of the new Woolworths magazine by a cheeky employee, the Xbox 360 Arcade will be put on sale …

French retail giant Casino is set to launch a major assault on the UK, with the firm setting its sights on stealing market share from DSGi, Comet, Tesco and Amazon amongst others. The firm will be launching its online arm, Cdiscount into the UK before the end of this year, …

Acitvision Publishing has strengthened its stable of UK studios with the acquisition of FreeStyleGames. The publisher said the music game talents of the Leamington Spa-based team, which previously worked on original PSP/PS2 title B-Boy (which won the Develop Award for best audio in 2007), attracted it to the studio.For more, …

Amid a global climate of credit meltdowns and consumer struggles, the US games market continued to grow in August, but its rate of growth has dropped to its lowest in over two years. August sales were nine per cent up on the same month in 2007 – reason to cheer, …