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

Ian Shepherd, the CEO of leading UK games retailer GAME, has said that the attitude of publishers toward pre-owned has changed. As long ago as 2005 publisher bosses were openly bemoaning the revenues lost to retail’s pre-owned sales. It has even been said the sector poses a bigger threat than …

The PSN downtime has cost the games industry millions of pounds in lost revenue, while new releases have hit shelves untested. Yet Kalypso’s new business development director – and digital specialist – Charlie Barrett says this short term pain will ultimately benefit the games market. If measures are put in …

Despite a slow start that has seen PSP continue to dominate the portable hardware sector in Japan, Famitsu publisher Enterbrain has predicted that 3DS will be the best selling console in the territory in 2011. Andriasang reports that predictions point to a total of 2,868,000 before the end of the …

Hard times continue, says CEO Mark Gerhard, but UK does not deserve to be painted in a bad light

Consumers have reacted positively to Amazon UK’s trade-in offer, the company has told MCV. In January this year, retail experts criticised Amazon’s game trade-in plans. ShopTo’s former marketing manager Phil Driver told MCV the long process of trading in online would be ‘intolerable’ for consumers compared to store trade-ins. However, …

Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops is still having a major impact at retail six months after its release. And not just in terms of unit sales, either. The multiformat first person shooter was responsible for the biggest ever week of sales of Xbox Live points cards earlier this month. …

US studio joins forces with Yale University to create sexual health awareness game for teenagers

PlayStation platform holder Sony has warned investor’s that this week’s full year financial report will fall dramatically short of previous expectations. AP reports that Sony now expects a YEN 260bn ($3.2bn) loss for the fiscal year ending March 31st. Previously it had forecast a YEN 70bn ($860m) profit for the …

Third time lucky. That must be the thinking behind Labour MP Keith Vaz’s posting of a third games-related Early Day Motion in ten months. The latest, entitled ‘Video Games and Young People’, is possibly his vaguest yet. It reads as follows: "That this House welcomes the call by Shigero Miyamoto, …

SCEE has announced that PS3 platformer Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One will be launched in PAL regions from Wednesday October 19th. In all likelihood that means a UK release on Friday October 21st. It will be released in the US on October 18th. Sony has also confirmed that a …