Publishing

EA Sports has announced a new football title for DS, due for release in March. Football Academy is a collection of mini-games and challenges that improves football knowledge. The game offers a way to learn football strategy, positioning and technique. Players build their knowledge by completing tasks and take their …

Sony has unveiled a special Resident Evil 5 branded PS3 console bundle, which is set to include a copy of the game and two controllers. According to Kotaku, the Premium Limited Edition pack is due for release on March 5th with the retail price of YEN 48.980 ($525). As revealed …

Video games website 1UP has been acquired by UGO Entertainment – a unit of the giant Hearst Corporation. UGO also picked up associated properties including GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com and GameTab.com. The deal is structured as an asset purchase between UGO Entertainment and the Ziff Davis Games Group. Since we started UGO …

ELSPA MD Michael Rawlinson has singled out the popularity of family-based gaming as the key force behind 2008’s market growth. Game sales in 2008 leapt 23 per cent compared to 2007, and Rawlinson believes the popularity of titles such as Wii Fit has opened the market up to an entirely …

PETA, the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, has named Lionhead’s Xbox 360 RPG Fable II in its 6th Annual Proggy Awards, naming it the year’s most animal-friendly video game”. The organisation said of the game: Fable 2 is a vegetarian’s dream come true. Why? In this virtual fight …

Following SCEE president’s David Reeves upbeat forecast of the year ahead for PlayStation , fellow executives have praised the achievements of the business in the last 12 months and predicted a bumper year ahead for PS3. SCEA vice president Ian Jackson stated: We’ve had a solid holiday season and have …

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe president David Reeves has stated that Sony’s PlayStation division is on target to alleviate” the specific pressure” it has come under for failing to post a profit since the launch of PS3. In an upbeat forecast for the year ahead on the UK PlayStation site, Reeves …

Mirroring the early 2008 chart success of EA’s FIFA 08, the publisher’s latest take on the beautiful game is starting 2009 on the front foot having pipped Call of Duty: World at War for the second time at the top of the ELSPA Gfk-ChartTrack All Formats Top 40. FIFA 09 …

New location for expanding localisation specialists

London-based publisher Oxygen has decided to cease internal development efforts at its studio in the capital. Oxygen Studios was established in 2007 and employed 14 people, primarily working on mainstream DS and Wii titles. A source close to the development team told Develop that the news was broken to the …