MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Google’s 2014 search data analysis has crowned cult smartphone hit Flappy Bird and the internet’s king of gaming in 2014. Overall Flappy Bird was the year’s most searched game followed by online Threes clone 2048, FIFA 15, Destiny and Titanfall. Flappy Bird searches peaked on February 9th while Destiny enjoyed …
Read More »Wii U sales fall in Japan as Vita sales creep back up
The PlayStation Vita has crept ahead of Wii U in Japan as the momentum gained from the release of Mario Kart 8 has started to wear off. The latest Famitsu data shows that Nintendo’s machine sold 10,366 units in the week ending June 15th. That’s down from 12,576 units last …
Read More »PES shows greater price decline than FIFA in weeks following release
It appears that the PES series takes the battle to FIFA on more fronts than simply on the pitch. Konami’s title has, over the last two years at least, attempted to topple its rival with lower prices – with last year’s PES 2013 offering larger discounts than the previous year. …
Read More »Q1 sales down 6.7% at GameStop
Global games retailer GameStop has reported a like-for-like annual sales decrease of 6.7 per cent for the quarter ending May 4th 2013. Gross profit fell from $599.9m last year to $578.3m. Operating earnings fell from $115m to $87.2m. Net earnings fell from $72.5m to $54.6m. New software sales fell 3.8 …
Read More »Microsoft: Console still accounts for 42% of the total video games market
With Microsoft and Sony about the throw millions and millions of pounds at launching their next-gen consoles, some observers may quite rightly ask one question – why? After all, mobile and casual games are the new frontier, right? Folk don’t want to spend 50 on triple-A games, let alone anything …
Read More »Global ad spend grew in 2012
After the disastrous collapse of 2009, global advertising revenue is again on the rise. That’s according to Worldwatch Institute’s Vital Signs Online service, which found that the 9.6 per cent drop suffer in 2009 in the aftermath of the global banking meltdown has been partially reversed thanks to a 3.3 …
Read More »Samsung expected to increase lead over Apple in 2013
Annual growth of 35 per cent is expected to further increase Samsung’s lead over former market leader Apple in 2013. That’s according to Strategy Analytics, which predicts smartphone shipments will grow 27 per cent to 875m units this year, although that’s down sharply from the 41 per cent jump seen …
Read More »"Weakened" sales of Resident Evil 6 force Capcom to lower forecasts
Capcom has lowered its net income predictions by nearly a third for the year ending March 31st. It had previously forecast 105,000m in net sales, 15,700m in ordinary income and 9,800m in net income. These numbers have been reduced to 93,500m, 10,000m and 9,500m respectively. The publisher admitted that while …
Read More »OPINION: Battle of the bullets might just fire up games retail
Our shooty Man showdown cover answers a question we posed back in May when The Avengers was rocking the Box Office. ‘Where are games’ heroes?’, MCV asked, at a time when cinema was showing you can part customers with their money on the promise of high-octane antics usually reserved for …
Read More »Will Black Ops II outsell Modern Warfare 3? Does it matter?
All the research suggests that Call of Duty has peaked. Last year’s Modern Warfare 3 sold significantly fewer units in the UK than 2010’s Black Ops and 2009’s Modern Warfare 2. Anecdotally, MCV has been told that online traffic and magazine sales for Call of Duty editorial and covers have …
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