Read how the next-gen is damaging sales of this year’s blockbusters in this week’s MCV

This week’s issue of MCV analyses how the next-gen transition is damaging the sales of the year’s biggest Q4 releases.

Sales of Call of Duty, Battlefield and Assassin’s Creed are all down on their predecessors, some by an alarming margin. Retailers tells MCV how the imminent arrivial of the next-generation of consoles are to blame as consumers hold as they wait for the new machines.

Meanwhile, we talk to Microsoft’s new recruit Elan Lee on storytelling through the next-gen, Sports Interactive’s Miles Jacobson on Football Manager becoming a brand and XCOM designer Anand Gupta on the new success of the ’90s strategy game.

Elsewhere, we talk to the leading players in digital distribution about Steam and how they’re competing against the firm that built the market.

The issue will cost you 1.99, and you canclick here to download our iPad app, andclick here to read it online.

You can also subscribe for three months (iPad only – 19.99), six months (34.99) or 1 year (64.99).

Here’s what you can look forward to in this week’s issue:

• The next-gen transition: Why sales of 2013’s blockbusters are all down
• INTERVIEW: Microsoft’s Elan Lee on the next-generation of storytelling
• A guide to this year’s London Games Conference
• October retail chart analysis
• INTERVIEW: Miles Jacobson on the Football Manager brand
• The return of XCOM
• How Namco Bandai is reinventing Pac-Man
• Digital distribution: How firms are competing in the market Steam built
• Plus! Previews of Super Mario 3D World, Deadfall Adventures and Ben 10 Omniverse 2