Game industry business news

Financial doom and gloom may be building elsewhere, but the games industry is bucking all the trends as Wii Fit and GTA IV look set to push retail sales up to the 100m mark this week. In the past week, ChartTrack confirmed that Wii Fit has already racked up 16m …

Another indication of gaming’s mass-market appeal has been secured – as Time Magazine’s readers have named Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto the most influential person in the world this year. Nintendo designer Shigeru Miyamoto has taken first place in a Time’s reader’s poll of the 100 most influential people of the year. …

American news network CNN has broadcast an astounding attack on Rockstar’s GTA IV – in which presenter Glenn Beck says the game is training our kids to be killers” and teaches young men to treat women like whores”. In the diatribe, which carries the headline ‘Grand Theft Morality’, Beck likens …

Scott Foe's secret Project White Rock is revealed as UGC-driven spoof and will hit PC and handsets

One Guardian commentator said that it would be ‘an act of cultural irresponsibility’ not to play GTA IV. Another in The Times termed it ‘the cultural event of the week’. While some media outlets still fall back on the tired old ‘outrage’ headlines, it is genuinely refreshing to see this …

Gamestop’s senior VP of merchandising has revealed that the release of GTA IV has inspired a ‘vigorous’ uptake in purchases of PS3 hardware. In a statement to the press reported by GameDaily, Bob McKenzie said: "From our position, the launch of GTA IV has been tremendous in driving traffic to …

Microsoft’s product manager for Xbox 360 and Xbox Live Aaron Greenberg has claimed that US retailers have sold double the number of units of GTA IV on 360 than they have on PS3. In an in-depth interview with Next-Gen, Greenberg said: "What we’ve heard anecdotally from our retail partners is …

Microsoft is confident that all consumers hwo pick up a copy of GTA IV on Xbox 360 will play the game via Xbox Live. The console’s online service allows up to 16 players to participate in 15 different online game types, ranging from co-operative play to cops-and-robbers team matches to …

Take Two executive chairman Strauss Zelnick has said that his firm’s decision to delay consideration of EA’s acquisitive $2 billion offer until after GTA IV’s release has been ‘vindicated’ by the game’s success. According to the New York Times, Zelnick said in a statement: The critical and consumer response to …

Give us a brief history of Grainger Games so far… The original Grainger Games was started by my Dad (Dan Bowyer) and I. We started trading as a partnership in 1997 with a market stall in the Grainger Market in Newcastle upon Tyne – hence the company name, Grainger Games. …