MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has ruled that Valve’s Steam service breached Australian consumer law. A disagreement between Valve and the ACCC kicked off in 2014 when the Steam owner was sued over its lack of refund policy. Such a policy was eventually introduced last year, but that …
Read More »International Factfile 2016: Sweden
Sweden is responsible for many triple-A titles both on mobile and traditional platforms. For instance, Minecraft, The Division, Star Wars Battlefront and Candy Crush Saga have all been developed by Swedish studios. Swedish games have often been described as booming and for good reason,” stated Per Strmbck, the spokesperson for …
Read More »PS4 and Far Cry top February NPD rankings; Fire Emblem blossoms
February marked another sales victory for Sony’s PlayStation 4 in the US. VentureBeat reports that the result means that PS4 has outsold Xbox One for 12 of the last 14 months in the region, with Sony saying: We continued to see strong year-over-year sales growth for PS4 hardware and software …
Read More »Target Australia enforces plain packaging for R18+ games
An Australian retailer has taken steps to reduce the appeal of games designed for those aged 18 and above. In much the same way as some territories have enforced the use of plain packaging for cigarettes, Attack of the Fanboy reports that Target is now displaying games with an R18+ …
Read More »Original Pokémon games back on top in Japan for series’ 20th anniversary
It’s 1996 again – Pokmon Red, Green, Blue and Yellow took the No.1 spot in Japan last week according to data from Famitsu. The four titles on 3DS sold 69,234 units between them, but didn’t result in a substantial increase in 3DS hardware sales as one might expect. New 3DS …
Read More »PS4 smashed its Australian sales records over Christmas period
PlayStation 4 had quite the year in Australia in 2015. According to NPD Australia’s 2015 data Sony’s hardware was the best-selling home console of the year and was behind 59 per cent of all home console hardware unit sales. Furthermore, 59 per cent of console market value was made up …
Read More »Japanese PS4 and Vita sales rise as KanColle Kai, Attack on Titan and Street Fighter launch
This week’s Japanese charts – provided by Famitsu – feature a wealth of brand new releases. The best-performing of these titles is Kadokawa’s Vita title KanColle Kai, which sold 137,201 units during the week. Meanwhile, Koei Tecmo’s Attack on Titan game takes second, third and eighth places. The PS4 SKU …
Read More »Windows Phone market share falls, overall smartphone growth slows
The market share enjoyed by Windows Phone handsets has more than halved in the last year. The latest Worldwide Smartphone Shipments report from Gartner shows that Q4 2015 shipments of Windows Phone devices fell to 4.4m units, giving it around 1.1 per cent market share of the period. That’s down …
Read More »US games industry was up 5% in 2015
Total US consumer spending on video games was up five per cent year-on-year in 2015, a new joint report between the ESA and NPD has revealed. That represents a revenue total of $23.5bn, compared to 2014’s $22.4bn. Software sales – including physical, digital, subscriptions and mobile – was up seven …
Read More »New Shin Megami Tensei title debuts at No.1 in Japan
The latest game in Atlus’ Shin Megami Tenseiseries of RPGs has gone straight to the top spot in Japan, according to data from Famitsu. The 3DS game – Shin Megami Tensei IV: Final – sold 96,556 units in its launch week. And despite being a 3DS exclusive, hardware figures for …
Read More »