Game industry business news

The Sun’s official medical expert, Dr. Keith Hopcroft, has told his readers that interactive entertainment is replacing exercise for many young men. In an article entitled, ‘Time for exercise – not for excuses’, Hopcroft writes: ‘The only bits of anatomy many young men exercise are their fingers and wrists. ‘No …

Sony’s virtual world platform PS3 Home will go live in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan this autumn. Closed Beta testing for Home will begin from Mid-September in the region. Sony has invited Hong Kong and Singapore users to participate, with details made available on the official website from August 29, …

Game Park Holdings has unveiled its latest iteration of its Korean-developed open-source handheld, the GP2X Wiz . The machine packs a bright 2.8-inch OLED touch-sensitive 320×240 QVGA screen and a 533MHz processor – which compares favourably with the PSP’s 333MHz CPU. It also boasts a built-in mic and expandable SD …

But 'more Japanese production houses working with foreign companies' means it'll catch up, say Capcom's sound team

Brothers In Arms developer Gearbox has been approached to create Halo 4 for Microsoft, according to Hollywood sources. An insider told Variety that the Gearbox had definitely” had conversations with Microsoft about the project – and was very excited” by the prospect. However, they confirmed that no deal had been …

Electronic Arts’ Casual Entertainment label is the latest to use a celebrity face to help promote a mass-market console title. The firm has signed up pop singer Natasha Bedingfield as the spokesperson for its new Boogie SuperStar game for the Nintendo Wii. For the full story, visit MCV sister site …

Sony has sold 10 million units of PSP in Japan, according to new sales data from Famitsu/Enterbrain. The monitor has also release figures for the top selling PSP software in the region. The top five are: 1. Monster Hunter 2nd G (Capcom) March 27, 2008 Release: 2,396,642 copies sold2. Monster …

Format-holders to start funding more games directly as current gen beds in

As part of its new report on what’s in store for the games industry for the remainder of the year, analyst firm Screen Digest has claimed that global publishing giants EA and Activision-Blizzard will account for 75 per cent of all releases on Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii this Q3. …

Many of Future’s titles performed well in the half-yearly ABC results – are you pleased with the performance? We’re very pleased actually, and for the official video games magazines we’re very, very pleased. We’ve got extreme growth across all three console markets, and when compared to struggling men’s lifestyle magazines …