Game industry business news

Online games portal Next-Gen is claiming that ‘a source’ has told it that Midway is sizing up SCi/Eidos for a possible merger. SCi last year openly admitted to be courting the business world for offers for the company. And Midway and SCi were said to have been in preliminary talks …

Online retailer Play.com is celebrating a record breaking Q4 for the firm which delivered year-on-year growth of 24 per cent, with December itself showing a 29 per cent improvement compared to 2006. Customer activity peaked on December 3rd, with Play processing an average of 700 orders per minute and enjoying …

Following a period of ongoing disruption to Xbox Live that saw many festive gamers miss out on a week of sitting in their pants shooting American teenagers online, rumours claim that Microsoft is planning a peace offering to those who pay a subscription to access the service. Problems with the …

With a booming internet market that currently includes approximately 42 million users, the hunger for online gaming is set to rapidly grow in India this year, according to BusinessWeek . Currently only five per cent of India’s web users are active gamers, according to information from ICube, but an increasing …

Joystiq reports that Bill Gates could use his final Consumer Electronics Show keynote to reveal a new Xbox 360 model with an integrated HD-DVD player – putting the console on a par with PS3 and its built-in Blu-Ray functionality. The report adds that platform holder Microsoft could also be preparing …

Nintendo’s Wii was awarded the console 2007 Customer’s Choice Award, collated by independent review publisher Reevoo . The scores for the next gen consoles were extrapolated from customer reviews, and put the Wii on top overall with 8.78 out of 10, the PS3 second with 8.25 out of 10 and …

Supermarket chain Marks and Spencer could be looking to increase the amount of space it gives games in the New Year – as the retailer prepares for an internal review of the sector’s performance. The company’s games offering currently resides in various ‘technology stores’ dotted around the UK in larger …

The NASDAQ US Stock Exchange has once again stated that it will remove Atari from its listings unless the North American games publisher shows notable improvements by March 20th. The fresh warning comes after Atari’s public share value dipped below $15 million for 30 consecutive days. To avoid punishment, the …

GAME’s success over the Christmas period has been confirmed by a further trading update, explaining that profits before non-recurring costs and tax will now be ahead of expectations at no less than 70m” This marks an enourmous leap from 2007’s trading performance, when profits for the year stood at 29.5m. …

Supermarket giant Sainsbury’s has told MCV it has plans to expand its dedicated games floor space in 2008 – claiming that 2007 ‘only shows the start of our ambitions in the category’. Video games have become an increasingly important part of our entertainment sales mix over the last year,” said …