MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry

A new Skylander figurine hits shelves next week, and it’s exclusive to Asda. The smash hit toy/video game brand – which accounted for almost a quarter of the entire accessories market last year – has been a major earner for retailers since its debut in October 2011. The new Skylander …

International games retailer GameStop has reported a year-on-year increase in profits from $943.2 to $974.9 for the 14 weeks ending February 2nd. That’s despite a fall in net sales from $3.579bn in the same period last year to $3.562bn. Operating profit jumped from $302.5m to $412.3m. Net income jumped from …

Retailers are braced for a blockbuster end to 2013 now that Battlefield 4 has joined the fray. Leading specialists and supermarkets have told MCV that they have huge expectations for the new shooter, following the long-tail success of Battlefield 3. The original title shifted well over 1.5m units in the …

Online indie ShopTo has seen its software market share leap in 2012. The firm says that, according to Chart-Track figures, its market share increased 45 per cent last year. ShopTo has already claimed significant wins this year, securing 31 per cent of the sales of Ni No Kuni Collector’s Edition, …

UK retailers are rallying against reported plans to prevent pre-owned sales on the next Xbox. Website VGLeaks reported last week that Microsoft’s next console will require a permanent online connection and will not need to read optical discs once a game has been installed. The report adds weight to persistent …

A report claiming to reveal the systems that Metacritic uses to assign importance” to reviews from various sites has been dismissed by the reviews aggregator. Gamasutra has reported that websites whose reviews are included in Metacritic’s roundup were split into six different categories, with those in higher tiers having a …

Mark Nicholas, David Lloyd and Michael Slater will provide commentary for Ashes Cricket 2013, publisher 505 Games has announced. Nicholas, who serves as a television presenter n both the UK and Australia, will be the lead commentator, with Ex-England coach Lloyd and former Aussie opening batsman Slater providing expert inputs. …

PC tech giant AMD has revealed that it was the upcoming Radeon HD 7990 that powered EA’s technically impressive Battlefield 4 demo at GDC. Until now AMD has rarely spoken about the HD 7990 specifically. As expected, the card is basically two high-end HD 7970s spliced together on a single …

The global PC gaming software market ballooned to $20bn last year, according to a new report by industry research group DFC Intelligence. The report (via Shacknews) was commissioned by the PC Gaming Alliance, which also announced the results. The organization includes both AMD and Intel. The $20bn figure marks an …

The Xbox 360 edition of Minecraft has reached yet another milestone. Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has now sold over SIX MILLION copies,” console developer 4J Studios announced on Twitter. The game’s continuing success on Microsoft’s console is no surprise, with indie retailer Game On recently telling MCV that the port …