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

Shares in the company sink 10 per cent

32.4m current generation game consoles are now in circulation in the UK, according to Gfk Chart-Track. That means retail has sold 5.2m DS, Wii, PS3, Xbox 360 and PSP consoles this year. However, that’s a 26 per cent slowdown in hardware sales compared to 2009. For the same year-to-date period …

John Earner was undoubtedly one of the stars of this year’s London Games Conference. As part of a panel that wasn’t exactly short on smarts or lacking in gravitas (it included luminaries such as Q Entertainment founder Shuji Utsumi and was chaired by games industry legend Phil Harrison), he spoke …

Retailer GAME has stated that second-hand will account for 25 per cent of its sales this financial year. That’s up from 21 per cent in 2009. The news comes as part of the firm’s interim statement, which revealed that GAME’s sales are down 8.8 per cent for the 44 weeks …

It’s not just publishers developing titles for the new motion controllers – peripherals vendor BigBen is also making PlayStation Move games. The firm will release at least one title for Sony’s 1.5 million-selling hardware next year as it re-establishes its publishing business, the company told MCV. BigBen already develops and …

A new independent-friendly distribution firm has been set up just in time for Christmas. A Game Distribution – which also sponsored the MCV/Xbox 360 industry Pub Quiz last week – focuses on independent retailers across Europe. It also offers logistics and promotional services. The London-based firm was established last month …

GAME has warned that its profit margins will fall more than expected this financial year as it cuts prices in the face of increased retail competition. The firm also revealed that for the 44 weeks ending December 4th, 2010, like-for-like group sales were down 8.8 per cent, while UK sales …

Richard Keith’s start-up media firm The Games Tribe has announced a series of new genre-specific websites. A number of Nintendo fans will head up www.3dstribe.com, while online journalist Adrian Vergara will look after www.fpstribe.com and games journalist Dean Samways will take care of www.kapowgames.com. These sites will cover news on …

One of the most senior execs at Electronic Arts believes non-online-enabled games are a finished” commodity. EA Games label president Frank Gibeau said that online components in all the division’s games are now borderline compulsory – a move that illustrates the startling evolutionary pace of the modern games industry. I …

Electronic Arts to trial new digital price-points and free-to-play models, Gibeau reveals