Game industry business news

Device lands on July 11th; games by Sega and co. once again displayed

Historically something of a dry spell for the games market, the summer period has seen a number of publishers over the past couple of years enjoy sizzling sales thanks to the timely roll-out of key titles during the release drought. But this summer the temperature has risen further, as triple-A …

Ubisoft is perfectly placed to snatch Take Two from under EA’s nose in a shock merger – and may well have a very keen eye on the publisher’s sports portfolio. That’s according to respected business bible Forbes, which today fingered the French firm as a possible contender to EA in …

Nintendo’s Wii Fit has failed to register a position in ChartTrack/ELSPA’s official All Formats Top 40 chart for the third week in a row . The culprit for the below par performance looks certain to be severe lack of stock – something High Street retailers have continually contacted MCV to …

LucasArts’ Lego Indiana Jones has become the first game in six weeks to outsell Rockstar’s GTA IV, according to official ChartTrack/ELSPA data. The game replaces GTA IV at the top of the All Formats chart, having outsold it by three-to-one over the past week. Sales of the title are split …

A leading psychiatrist in the treatment of online game addiction has revealed that some World Of Warcraft users are more ashamed of being addicted to the game than to online porn. Speaking to The Boston Globe, Dr Jerald Block spoke about the rise in internet addiction and some of the …

The head of US gamers’ consumers group the Entertainment Consumers Association has said that he knows of two more games companies that are planning to leave US publisher body the Entertainment Software Association. Hal Halpin told the Washington Post that a duo of firms were set to join Activision, Vivendi …

Sony’s PSP continues to dominate the Japanese hardware market, after clocking up 270,750 sales in May. According to data exclusively given to MCV by our media partner Famitsu/Enterbrain, the handheld took 37.3 per cent of all console sales in the month. It was followed by Wii, which shifted 220,052 units …

Optical disc hardware specialist Singulus has received orders for 21 Blu-Ray dual-layer duplication machines in the first quarter of this year – a faster adoption than of the format’s predeccesor DVD 11 years ago. "This means that the orders for Blu-ray in the first year of the dual layer technology …

Xbox president Robbie Bach has criticised Blu-Ray’s lack of sales success since the HD-DVD format imploded – and questioned why consumers would bother upscaling from DVD. Speaking to the San Francisco Chronicle, Bach also ruled out any possibility of a Blu-Ray enabled Xbox – either in this or the next …