Retail

Liverpool studio Bizarre Creations will close today. To mark the occasion, one individual at the company has assembled a farewell video, featuring some of the group’s most notable games. The video can be found below. Develop has written an obituary on the studio, here. Story originally published on Develop

Publisher EA has admitted that it made mistakes with the launch of last year’s fitness title EA Sports Active 2. The game failed to chart in the UK when it arrived at the end of November – complete with a 79.99 RRP. However, it wasn’t until the week ending January …

GAME Group CEO Ian Shepherd has emphasised the often underestimated importance of its Reward Card loyalty programme. It’s a scheme that formed a central part of GAME’s Strategic Update earlier this morning. "The ability to take a customer on a journey from buying a console to buying a game to …

The market for new triple-A titles would be diminished were it not for the pre-owned sector, GAME Group CEO Ian Shepherd has claimed. "The existence of pre-owned makes the new market bigger," he said at today’s strategy briefing. "It makes it more affordable, reduces the total cost of ownership. However, …

The nominations list for the GAME British Academy Video Games Awards has been revealed. Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops lead the charge with six nominations each. Other names of note include Sony’s Heavy Rain, Microsoft’s Alan Wake, EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and indie …

HMV’s bosses are focused on transforming its business, despite widespread reports that billionaire shareholder Alexander Mamut wants to break-up the retailer. The Russian business oligarch has reportedly consulted with financial specialists Credit Suisse to discuss the future of the retailer. The suggestion is that Mamut wants to buy the Waterstones …

Over half a million fewer games were sold in the UK last month compared with January 2010. It marks a 13.4 per cent dip year-on-year in unit sales for UK games retail, while the market value has fallen 7.9 per cent to 84.6m. Chart-Track director Dorian Bloch pointed to a …

Test Drive Unlimited 2 has topped the GfK All Formats Top 40 this week ahead of EA’s Dead Space 2. The multiformat driving game is Atari’s first No.1 of the year. It is distributed by Namco Bandai in the UK. Nintendo’s new Mario games continued to rise up the charts …

TV celebrity and retail specialist Mary ‘Queen of Shops’ Portas directed her attentions at retailer GAME this weekend, and highlighted her lack of respect for the ratings system in the process. Speaking on Twitter, Portas was seemingly outraged that the Oxford Street brand of the retailer was unwilling to sell …

It’s one of the worst kept secrets in games – and thankfully, it’s not a secret any more, and it hits shelves in just a matter of days. Sony Ericsson this evening finally took the wrappers off its new PlayStation-oriented games smartphone, the Xperia Play. It is a slide-open device …