MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
PS4 and Xbox One UK game sales shot up by over 50 per cent in 2015. GfK’s latest stats reveal significant growth for the new consoles. However, the overall UK physical games market is down by eight per cent, dropping from 2.294bn in 2014 to 2.1bn last year. That number …
Read More »High Street entertainment market share up year-on-year, says Kantar
New data from Kantar Worldpanel indicates that the market share of GAME, HMV and Argos has increased on the year before. The firm’s new research – for the 12 weeks ending September 27th 2015 – shows that HMV was the strongest performer, with its share of the entertainment retail market …
Read More »FIFA 16 holds off The Nathan Drake Collection from reaching No.1
FIFA 16 spends its third week at the top of the UK charts. By scoring this hat-trick, EA’s football blockbuster is half-way to matching FIFA 15’s six-week run at No.1 last year. FIFA 16 manages this despite a 59 per cent dip in sales. EA’s title holds off competition from …
Read More »Two years after its presumed death, pre-owned is thriving
Boxed game sales are falling and the dearth of digital data means the true state of the market remains largely a mystery. But one tried and tested retail sector is certainly in rude health. As recently as 2013, retail feared that next-gen consoles might mark the end for pre-owned games. …
Read More »UK boxed games market hits lowest point since 1996
Sales of UK games plunged to their lowest point in 19 years for the week ending August 22nd. According to GfK Chart-Track, just 4.46m was generated by boxed software revenue for that period, the lowest amount since the data firm’s inception in 1996. This figure only factors in boxed sales, …
Read More »Games press joins call for digital charts
The biggest names in the games media have joined MCV’s call for digital data to be included in the games charts. The Digital Counts campaign launched last week with an open letter to games publishers and platform holders, calling on them to share their data so that an accurate games …
Read More »Pac-Man 256 reaches 5m downloads
Mobile title Pac-Man 256 has been downloaded over five million times. That’s according to publisher Bandai Namco, who has also revealed that it is the most-downloaded game in 98 countries in all categories, while in 104 regions for games sections. The firm has also announced that Pac-Man will be coming …
Read More »Game of War director arrested for trying to board plane with secret data
Machine Zone has found itself embroiled in a second trade secrets row in a single week. The Wall Street Journal that the developer’s director of global infrastructure Jing Zeng, who is at the was arrested as he attempted to board a plane to Beijing, carrying with him data about Game …
Read More »Chart-Track: Industry is at risk of losing its best research and PR tool
GfK Chart-Track has warned the games industry that it might lose its best PR tool if it fails to share digital data. The firm, which operates the UK Top 40, says it is ready to support downloads in its chart, but that it’s up to the games industry to want …
Read More »Her Story sells 100,000 units in just over a month
Indie hit Her Story has shifted 100,000 copies in its first month on sale. That’s according to developer Sam Barlow, who took to Twitter (below) to announce the news. The game came out on June 24th, and fast became a hit. It casts players as someone watching interview footage from …
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