MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Almost a year after Fable II, Microsoft and Lionhead re-released the game in episodic chunks over Xbox Live. And the game’s creative director Peter Molyneux feels digital is the way to reach an even broader audience. Retail will get you to 70 or 80 per cent of the people who …
Read More »The growth of Grainger Games
In a period of falling sales and store closures, the story of Grainger Games is a refreshing one. The retail chain – which began as a market stall on Newcastle’s Grainger Arcade in 1997 – opened its 40th store in Liverpool earlier this month. It means the Northern chain has …
Read More »Medal of Honor sells 1.5 million
Electronic Arts has announced that Medal of Honor has sold more than 1.5 million units worldwide. The reboot of the long-running FPS series achieved this figure after only five days on sale in the US and two days after its European and Asian release. It debuted at No.1 in the …
Read More »Take-Two predicts digital boom
The CEO of Rockstar and 2K Games owner Take-Two has claimed that digital games sales could account for as much as 40 per cent of the publisher’s total business by 2013. However, he foresees this as additional revenue, claiming that the growth will not come at the expense of traditional …
Read More »New games claim just 59% of market
A preview of NPD’s upcoming Games Industry: Total Consumer Spend Report has revealed that boxed, new game releases now account for just 59 per cent of the total video games market in North America. The report found that in the first half of 2010 US consumers spent $3.7bn on new, …
Read More »ANALYSIS: The future of Blockbuster UK
As Premier League football clubs prove on a yearly basis, having a lot of debt doesn’t necessarily mean you are a bad business. Take Manchester United, it reportedly owes around 520m, but it still attracts over 75,000 fans a week, has a wealth of high profile assets and is regarded …
Read More »HMV: Black Ops could be biggest game ever
UK entertainment retailer has predicted that Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops could become the biggest selling video game of all time after it hits global retail shelves on November 9th. We’re seeing some exceptional interest for this title across its different formats,” HMV’s senior buyer James Brooks told Eurogamer. …
Read More »CHIPS is back: The action plan
CHIPS has struck back following the collapse of Chipsworld in July this year. In reality, the indie retail giant never went anywhere as CHIPS Franchise Ltd – the sister company which looks after 13 franchised stores – was still operational. But now joint MDs Don McCabe and Nik Agar have …
Read More »Taxman hunts down dodgy importers
UK retailers could be left out of pocket as Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs clamps down on corrupt distributors. Fraudulent suppliers have been buying consoles from abroad without paying VAT, then selling the machines on to UK retailers with the VAT added on top. These temporary traders then disappear, and …
Read More »Tesco wants 20% of games market by 2012
Supermarket behemoth Tesco wants to have a 20 per cent share of the UK games software market. The firm told MCV it can achieve this goal, and become the UK’s second largest games retailer in terms of sales, over the next two years. We have already doubled our share on …
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