Retail

EA-Owned Playfish plans to seriously grow the audience for its social games – by forging partnerships with leading High Street brands. The otherwise online-only firm has tied-up with the likes of Sainsbury’s, HMV and even games-shy WHSmith to sell in-game currency cash cards. While the developer offers a range of …

The GAME Group has announced that it is to close 43 of its outlets owing to the the tougher market conditions that it faces in 2010”. In total, 12 GAME stores, six Gamestation stores and all 25 of its Debenhams concessions will cease trading. The result will be 247 redundancies. …

Click here to access the Retail Biz Previews section, where you’ll find the definitive guide to the hottest releases heading to the High Street. This week, we take a look at Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV – an enhanced edition of last year’s best-selling beat-’em-up that provides fresh challenges for …

Wii platform sequel Super Mario Galaxy 2 will be released in North America on May 23rd, Nintendo has confirmed. The release date is even earlier than the mid-summer prediction muttered earlier today and will delight the platform holder’s legion of loyal fans. Though the game – which was originally conceived …

MCV can reveal that both Asda and Tesco have begun selling pre-owned video games in some of their UK stores. Asda is currently trialling the scheme in its Leeds Living store at Crown Point. It is believed that the offer began on Monday. It has also emerged that late last …

Warner Bros is hopeful that its library of prominent IPs will be available to its new development studio Rocksteady. It was initially expected that Rocksteady would – in the short-term – act as a dedicated Batman studio. But Warner Bros’ long-serving UK president Josh Berger says that the studio will …

LucasArts’ third person action adventure Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has now sold 7m units worldwide, the publisher has confirmed to GameSpot. The game was first released in September 2008 and shot straight to the top of the ELSPA GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40, enjoying the biggest ever release …

Sega’s Vancouver 2010: The Official Video Game has returned to the Top 10 of the Xbox 360 and PS3 charts as interest grows in the current Winter Olympics. The game saw a 274 per cent rise in sales during the week ending February 20th, 2010, driven primarily by the console …

WHsmith’s loss could be HMV’s gain: the entertainment specialist has launched a new superstore concept this week. A new outlet in Newcastle features HMV’s games, movie and music ranges, an array of books from sister retailer Waterstones, plus concessions. Games claim 20 per cent of the entertainment section – with …

AntiGrav Media saw its turnover increase 400 per cent for fiscal year 2009, and now the firm is intent on re-creating that success for 2010. The peripherals specialist attributes the sales triumph to its huge range of products and growing selection of licensed accessories. AntiGrav Media grew significantly in 2009,” …