Game industry business news

Lineage and Tabula Rasa were the key drivers in NCsoft’s full-year financials, which saw an overall sales drop of three per cent, but an operating profit, pre-tax profit and net profit of 14 per cent, 24 per cent and 18 per cent respectively. Fourth quarter consolidated net sales stand at …

Dark Sector has been refused classification by the OFLC, Australia’s classification board. According to IGN, the third-person action game has been described by the board as a violent and sometimes gruesome game with a sinister storyline and ominous outcome. The violence and aggression inflicted upon the protagonist is of a …

Gerry Berkley, Woolworths A retail stalwart boasting many, many years of expertise, Berkley has mentored many of today’s most successful retail buyers, earning him the moniker ‘the godfather of games buying’. His first involvement with games was at BHS in the 1980s, dealing with Sinclair Spectrum and C64. After a …

With a European release date of September 5th being set for EA’s massively hyped Spore on PC, Mac and DS just hours ago, talk has already shifted to the possibility of Will Wright’s epic arriving on other platforms. Spanish site Revogamers quotes an EA rep as saying that the Wii …

A recent analyst report from EA has let slip that recently-acquired development studio Pandemic is working on a Lord of the Rings title, according to Kotaku . Pandemic rose to fame following its sterling work on war zone sandbox title Mercenaries and multiplayer shooter Star Wars: Battlefront. Nothing is known …

The oft-rumoured relocation of Games Convention away from the Leipzig Messe finally looks to be becoming a reality today – as a prominent German national newspaper reports the show is to move to Cologne next year. According to financial newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the expo will move across Germany in …

ANALYSIS: We look at what the attentions of Disney, Viacom and Warner means for the industry

Hot on the heels of Microsoft’s supposed revelation that the Xbox 360 version of Grand Theft Auto IV will be the only one to support online multiplayer, Rockstar has moved to deny the news. A spokesperson for the publisher told MCV: As we’ve said previously, both the Xbox 360 and …

SCE UK has confirmed to MCV that PS3 has sold a million units in the UK since its launch on March 23rd. ChartTrack has also revealed that the Sony console has been outselling 360 for the last month. It has been outselling 360 for the last four weeks, but they …

PS3 owners who feel a little hard done by due to Sony’s decision to remove PS2 backwards compatibility from their machine might have some good news on the way, with the suggestion that the feature might wait a long-awaited return. Launch PS3’s all boasted PS2 backwards compatibility – with the …