Retail

Andrew Thompson, the head of games at supermarket Asda, has told MCV that increasing competition in the games sector forced it to adopt a pre-owned games strategy. Tesco, Argos and Best Buy all let customers trade in against anything in store. And he adds that publisher’s do understand the retailer’s …

The sales firm headed by industry veterans Adam Prichard and Roger Large is now offering a direct-to-retail service. Licensed 4U’s new service offers foreign publishers and developers a cost-effective route into the UK marketplace. It has already signed MSL Benelux to release DS versions of Tropical Lost Island, Casual Classics …

Everyone MCV spoke to about Valve and its towering digital distribution system Steam has been massively positive about it. At first, that is. Admiration and awe is always followed by bitterness, jealousy and, above all, frustration.Steam, simply, is just much, much better than everyone else. Being brilliant tends to attract …

Supermarket behemoth Tesco has now rolled out its pre-owned games service to all of its Extra stores.That’s nearly 200 shops across the UK. However, although all Extras will be accepting trade-ins, pre-owned games will only be available to buy in 150 of the firm’s larger outlets. We are continuing to …

Anger over trade-ins is on the rise again, as retailers turn to pre-owned to drive sales this Christmas. The expected price war over Call of Duty: Black Ops did not materialise this week, and instead High Street stores were encouraging consumers to trade games in to get the FPS for …

The Hut Group has announced it has acquired online health and beauty specialist, the Lookfantastic Group. The acquisition cost 19.4m and will see Lookfantastic’s online stores such as lookfantastic.com, lookmantastic.com and beautysleuth.co.uk integrated into The Hut’s extensive portfolio. As such, the 1m+ predominantly female customer base that Lookfantastic has established …

Sainsbury’s says it will launch a digital download service this year – but it won’t include games. The supermarket giant’s service will begin with music, DVD and early next year, eBooks. The news follows the launch of Sainsbury’s Enertainment website, which does stock physical copies of video games. It’s being …

ZeniMax owned publisher Bethesda has confirmed that it has now shipped five million copies of recent post-apocalyptic Xbox 360, PS3 and PC hit Fallout: New Vegas. Add to this what Bethesda describes as heavy volumes” of digital downloads and the game has already grossed in excess of $300m at retail. …

Retail behemoth Asda says it had to start selling used games in order to ‘protect its long-term games business.’ The grocer rolled-out pre-owned into 234 UK stores following the launch of FIFA 11 last month, and head of games Andrew Thompson says he and the team have been keeping publishers …

The last couple of years have been tough on the High Street. But that isn’t the impression you get when you look at what retail has in store this week. Midnight Tuesday through to close of business Wednesday are ground zero, the biggest software release and most-hyped hardware launch delivering …