Activision now claims to have not one, but two of the biggest franchises in games, serving two very different audiences. MCV asked European VP Michael Sportouch and UK & Ireland MD Peter Hepworth if Call of Duty and Skylanders can keep growing in the face of a pressured retail market …

The days of Satoru Iwata cowering behind the sofa at the mere mention of the internet are (mostly) behind us. Nintendo has announced that New Super Mario Bros 2 will not be the only full game” download to be made available on the Nintendo eShop next week. The publisher will …

UK games retail was rescued by the biggest licences in movies and sport last month, as it struggles through one of the weakest summer of sales in the industry’s history. Physical game sales were down 29.2 per cent year-on-year last month, with just 1.65m games sold, according to UKIE GfK/Chart-Track. …

What an age we live in when retailer bosses admit that their chains are on the road to extinction. Having yesterday posted a loss for its last financial year, HMV boss Simon Fox – who will step down from his role early next month – has made a remarkable admission …

The NPD Group has released its monthly US retail report for July, confirming a year over year decline in spending for the eighth month in a row. Total industry spending was down 20 per cent, coming in at $548.4m compared to $686.3m during July 2011. NPD, seemingly prepping us for …

Booya for Ouya, bender on Slender and minger for Zynga. Which roughly translated means that it’s been a great day for Ouya, a bad day for the MCV journalist forced to play horrific indie title Slender and really not the best 24 hours for Zynga. This is the news. Codemasters …

Despite being the latest publisher to brave the wrath of the ferocious online games community, Codemasters is sticking by its guns. It was revealed yesterday that the Britsoft studio is cutting the in-car view option from freshly announced racer Grid 2. So what, you may say? Well, in-car is for …

In the third of our four EA interviews, EA Games marketing boss Laura Miele discusses Dead Space, Need for Speed, Medal of Honor and Battlefield 3 How was E3 for EA Games?We did something interesting this year in that we waited until E3 to announce Dead Space 3, Need for …

Heading to Cologne next week? Make sure you’re full prepared with our comprehensive guide to the world’s biggest games show. The full five-page guide, including maps of Koelnmesse and a full exhibitor list, can be found in this week’s issue of MCV – available to download here. In the meantime, …

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