Retail

Online betting giant Paddy Power has backed Modern Warfare 2, Assassin’s Creed II and FIFA 10 as mostly likely to snatch this year’s Christmas No.1, MCV can reveal. Activision’s modern-day first person shooter is the runaway favourite to top the charts with odds of 13/8, while Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II …

US supermarket giant Wal-Mart has begun selling pre-owned games for the first time. The ASDA parent has previously installed trade-in kiosks in its stores – a move which has been followed by the likes of Best Buy and the UK’s very own GAME. Now, however, Wal-Mart has also launched a …

Best Buy Europe has strengthened its UK launch plans by appointing Centresoft to exclusively handle all gaming products, MCV can reveal. The deal includes PC games as well as all console software and hardware – except Microsoft first party products, which are handled in the UK by Gem.It is understood …

The UK video games market’s weekly sales shot up 54 per cent to 27.8m last week – its highest weekly figure since Easter. Unit sales also rose 34 per cent to 1,082,362. The results were driven by this week’s new no.1 and no.2, Halo 3: ODST and Nintendo’s Professor Layton …

Pre-owned sales could account for close to a third of GAME’s revenue in 12 months’ time – as the firm looks forward to another year of double-digit growth for its trade-in business. In alarming news for publishers, pre-owned generated 25.7 per cent of the firm’s revenues in a tough H1 …

Joystiq is reporting that US retail chain Game Crazy will close 200 stores by the end of October. The outlet has approximately 680 locations throughout the US with some of the stores attached to rental chain Hollywood Video. However, the rental stores are set to remain unaffected by the closures. …

Children’s Hospices UK has signed a new fundraising partnership with GAME Group. The agreement will see GAME and Gamestation stores raising money over the next two years for the UK’s network of 41 children’s hospices. All funds raised will go towards teenage activity weekends at hospices across the country. The …

In what has become an annual ritual at UK retail, this Friday’s release of FIFA 10 looks likely to spark a fierce price war at the nation’s supermarkets. Though we’ve yet to receive final confirmation from any individual chain, reports are suggesting that Tesco will be selling the Xbox 360 …

Sports Interactive studio head Miles Jacobson has insisted he is fully committed to retail partnerships – after announcing that the Steam edition of FM10 will come with exclusive bonus content. In an exclusive deal with Valve, the upcoming Steam version of Football Manager 10 will be bundled with Sega’s acclaimed …

Activision will redefine what constitutes a blockbuster when Modern Warfare 2 lands in just a matter of weeks. The Call of Duty title is riding a wave of hype and mounting pre-orders. Many are now saying the third week of November could represent the most lucrative sales spike ever for …