MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
A report being published by the Entertainment Retailers Association will this morning say that digital sales in the UK passed 1bn in 2012. That represents the amount spent on games, music and films in 2012, although games accounted for over half of the total at 552m, climbing 7.7 per cent. …
Read More »Black Ops II beats Modern Warfare 3 to $1bn sales milestone
The jury may still be out on Black Ops II’s overall market performance, but the shooter has claimed yet another very impressive record today. Activision has announced that the game has hit the $1bn sales milestone in 15 days – that’s a day quicker than its predecessor Modern Warfare 3 …
Read More »Retail vacancy rate reaches record UK high
Over one-in-ten stores are now standing empty on UK High Streets, the British Retail Consortium has claimed. The organisation’s latest survey pegs national vacancy rates at 11.3 per cent. That’s up 0.4 per cent month-on-month and is the highest rate since the BRC started compiling the data in July 2011. …
Read More »FIFA 13 demo downloaded 4.6m times
The anticipation could hardly be any bigger ahead of the release of FIFA 13 this Friday. EA has revealed that the FIFA 13 demo it released has been downloaded a staggering 4.6m times. That’s an EA Sports record, and it’s also a rise of 42 per cent compared to the …
Read More »iPhone 5 registers 2m pre-orders in one day
Apple has stated that it received over two million pre-orders for the iPhone 5 in its first 24 hours of availability. That’s double the one million pre-orders won by the iPhone 4S in its first 24 hours and over triple the 600,000 day one iPhone 4 pre-orders. The handset is …
Read More »FIFA 13 demo breaks series’ records; Pre-orders up on 2011
If the public’s appetite for full-price console releases is diminishing, then FIFA 13 is clearly doing something right. EA has revealed that the FIFA 13 demo was downloaded a total of 1.99m people in its first three days of release. That’s 29 per cent up year-on-year compared to the opening …
Read More »DICE defends EA’s track record of innovation
The perception that EA does little more than pump out mass-market sequels is unjust, owned studio DICE has argued. "EA is actually very prone to try out new things," Magnus Troedsson, the general manager of EA-owned studio and Battlefield creator DICE told Gamasutra. "And I have to say that sometimes …
Read More »Darksiders II is THQ’s second most pre-ordered game
THQ has big plans for the future of Darksiders II that goes beyond the game’s launch this summer. Darksiders II arrives on 360, PS3 and PC on August 21st, with a Wii U version to come. It’s the second-highest pre-ordered title in THQ’s history, behind last year’s Saints Row: The …
Read More »Dragon’s Dogma storms Japanese charts, breaks records
Capcom’s open-world Dragon’s Dogma has debuted at the top of the Japanese software charts. It sold a fantastic 302,040 units on PS3 with an additional 29,024 units on Xbox 360. The two SKUs claimed first and fifth in the software charts respectively. Even more impressively, the game becomes the fastest …
Read More »Virgin Media blocks Pirate Bay, but site traffic rockets
Cable TV and internet specialist Virgin Media has become the first UK ISP to block The Pirate Bay from its broadband users. Virgin media has received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement,” a notice reads …
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