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

Despite the economic downturn, British retailers sold a record number of games, DVDs and music in 2008 – with video games ahead of the pack, establishing the medium as the most successful entertainment business of the ear. The Entertainment Retailers Association has revealed that its members a total of 485.8 …

Sony has unveiled a special Resident Evil 5 branded PS3 console bundle, which is set to include a copy of the game and two controllers. According to Kotaku, the Premium Limited Edition pack is due for release on March 5th with the retail price of YEN 48.980 ($525). As revealed …

The strict Australian classification system has struck again, and this time it’s Atari that has been forced to make changes to a title to get its game onto the nation’s retail shelves. Edge reports that the publisher had to make some last minute cuts to its upcoming Silent Hill: Homecoming …

Debut of iGames Summit to hit San Francisco in March

Video games website 1UP has been acquired by UGO Entertainment – a unit of the giant Hearst Corporation. UGO also picked up associated properties including GameVideos.com, MyCheats.com and GameTab.com. The deal is structured as an asset purchase between UGO Entertainment and the Ziff Davis Games Group. Since we started UGO …

The official figures are in and – as we predicted just before Christmas – 2008 was a record year for video games sales in the UK. In total, the games market was at an all time high last year according to ELSPA/GFK Chart-Track figures with the total software and market …

While 2008’s 4bn market boom comes thanks to the overall wider demographic served by the industry, ELSPA/GFK Chart-Track say that it was Nintendo which ‘led the way’ in growth during 2008. Unit sales of games for the format-holder’s Wii and DS platforms amounted to 40m in total. Wii games sales …

ELSPA MD Michael Rawlinson has singled out the popularity of family-based gaming as the key force behind 2008’s market growth. Game sales in 2008 leapt 23 per cent compared to 2007, and Rawlinson believes the popularity of titles such as Wii Fit has opened the market up to an entirely …

While the official figures from ELSPA/GFK Chart-Track point out that Nintendo led the way as part of last year’s record-breaking 4bn market value, it’s clear that both Sony and Microsoft formats made considerable gains as well. According to the data today, The PlayStation 3’s first full year of software sales …

Yesterday we heard how Climax restructured its business around outsourcing and flexibility.