MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Games retailers say the rescue plan laid out by TV retail expert Mary Portas to revive UK High Streets doesn’t go far enough”. Last month, the Queen of Shops published her Government-commissioned review into the decline of the High Street. The Portas Review explored the reasons behind falling sales and …
Read More »Sony has ‘biggest campaign ever’ ready for Vita launch
The marketing push for PS Vita will get the device into gamers’ hands next week – and it’s part of the firm’s biggest campaign yet. An experiential tour starts on January 12th in Manchester, with the Vita Rooms visiting Glasgow and London during January and February afterwards. It’s just one …
Read More »UPDATE: Netflix finally arrives in the UK
US rental giant Netflix has at last arrived in the UK. It debuts in the form of a PS3 app which puts it squarely up against established UK rival LoveFilm, which is owned by Amazon. A Netflix subscription will cost 5.99 a month in the UK, with the first month …
Read More »Software Sales Monitor: Market dips to £48.6m
The UK games retail market generated 48.6m in the post-Christmas week – a drop of 45 per cent over the week before. More than 2m video games were sold at retail for the week ending December 31st, representing a 39 per cent week-on-week dip in unit sales. FIFA 12 became …
Read More »Digital omission threatening chart legitimacy
As was reported yesterday, end of year trading figures show a gaping 100m hole in the UK games retail market for 2011. According to GfK Chart-Track data, UK games retailers sold 55.4m games during 2011, almost 12 per cent down year-on-year. In terms of revenue, UK retailers made 1.42bn from …
Read More »UK video games market falls 13% in 2011
The overall UK video game market was worth 2.52bn in 2011 according to the latest UKIE figures. That represents a year-on-year drop of 13 per cent from 2.88bn and a third year of decline. In 2009 the UK market was worth 3.31bn and in 2008 it reached a record value …
Read More »Indies furious over Old Republic collector’s edition
Independent games retailers are in uproar having missed out on stocking the GAME-exclusive 130 edition of Star Wars: The Old Republic. The monthly subscription-based PC MMO developed by BioWare and published by EA hit stores as early as December 15th. The collector’s edition – featuring a statue, map, journal, metal …
Read More »Taxation as a tool
The frontier boss looks at the impact UK tax systems have on the high tech industries
Read More »UK retail sells 3m games last week
UK games retailers took a whopping 73.9m last week from game sales alone. In total 2,978,493 titles were sold last week. It’s up over the week before, although slightly down on the comparable week in 2010. But this year there’s still a full sales week to come, including a Saturday …
Read More »Old Republic has ‘up to 1.5m’ players
It’s been live less than a week but Star Wars: The Old Republic could have as many as 1.5m users signed up already. EA’s subscription-based PC MMO went on sale in UK retailers today, although customers who pre-ordered it early have been able to log in and play it since …
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