MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
The most popular video games now outsell films and DVDs. The game Grand Theft Auto IV alone sold around six million copies in its first week on worldwide release, grossing more than $500m. Game sales are predicted to rise 12% this year to create a market worth $36bn, compared to …
Read More »JAPAN: Xbox 360 tops satisfaction poll
Microsoft’s Xbox 360 has topped a consumer satisfaction poll in Japan, outperforming both Nintendo and Sony’s console offerings. The survey, released by ASCII Media Works, asked both console owners and potential buyers to rate all the consoles in six categories; Value for money, variety of compelling software, graphical strength, hardware …
Read More »Chinatown Wars sales in line with AAA titles
Nintendo claims that Rockstar’s commercially underperforming DS title, GTA Chinatown Wars, is selling in line” with other third-party AAA titles for the DS. Before NPD offered its March sales figures for North America, analysts gave conflicting predictions on the outcome of the critically adored title. EEDAR’s Jesse Divnich predicted that …
Read More »UK retail exposed in illegal game sales
An undercover investigation by a Trading Standards authority has exposed a number of retailers for selling mature games to a 14 year-old volunteer. The operation, which took place last week, saw the volunteer attempt to purchase 18-rated video games across 16 separate retail outlets. According to Dundee Council, twelve of …
Read More »UK retail reports Easter sales bonanza
UK video game retailers enjoyed a bumper Easter last weekend, with software value up 29 per cent over the previous week. The growth occurred despite the lack of a major blockbuster release, with sales driven by the recently launched DSi and aided by intense price cutting online and on the …
Read More »Majesco goes direct in Europe
Thought the DS and Wii markets couldn’t get more competitive? Think again. MCV can reveal that the firm responsible for ‘discovering’ Cooking Mama will soon start publishing its own titles in the UK and Europe. Majesco Europe is readying over ten games that it plans to sell direct to British …
Read More »Getting better & better
Gaming has gone through many changes over the years, but 2008 was most definitely when the self-improvement and non-gaming software genre came into its own. Although traditional titles continued to break new ground and fare well commercially, any advances made were comparatively small to those made in the self-improvement market. …
Read More »Pirate Bay founders lose Court case
The founders of the BitTorrent Pirate Bay website have been found guilty of ‘assisting in making copyright content available’ this morning – with all four execs given custodial sentences. In a landmark case in the differentiation between file-sharers and pirates, the Swedish Court found Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, …
Read More »Paramount becomes console publisher
Hollywood’s flirtation with online gaming is developing into a committed relationship – with Paramount the latest Tinseltown giant to bypass retail for a major movie tie-in. The studio has created a download-only game of its new Star Trek movie – disregarding the opportunity to release a boxed product spin-off of …
Read More »NPD: Resi 5 soars, GTA slumps
Resident Evil 5 sold over 1.5 million units across North America in March, according to the latest NPD figures. Capcom’s newest instalment in the undying franchise was in fact the most popular title for any single platform, with the Xbox 360 edition (938,000) even managing to outsell the lucrative Nintendo …
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