We expect investors to remain spooked by the May results, as they are beginning to reinforce the notion that the video game industry is in a state of persistent secular decline.” That’s the somewhat startling assessment of famed games analyst Michael Pachter in light of further declines in the US …
Read More »NPD: US games market falls
Having delayed the announcement of last month’s US video game sales, NPD has today published the figures for both April and May in the North American video games market – and both show year-on-year declines. May saw a 10 per cent sales decrease compared to 2009, with total sales of …
Read More »Tesco doubles games market share
Mammoth retailer Tesco is also planning to boost its presence in the video games market, after a strong year in the sector. We’ve doubled our market share in both hardware and games," Tesco’s category director for entertainment Rob Salter told MCV’s sister site PCR. "And we’ve invested quite heavily in …
Read More »ShopTo posts £22m turnover
Retailer ShopTo trebled its market share and posted a turnover of 22 million in its last financial year. The retailer has also told MCV that the site doubled its customer base in 2009 and expects that number to increase by 200,000 by the end of the year. We have trebled …
Read More »Retail forced to swallow VAT hike
UK games retailers will see their margins slashed in 2011 as they are forced to swallow the cost of a VAT rise. Senior retail figures have told MCV they are reluctant to raise the price of games above the watermark 39.99 price point once the extra 2.5 per cent comes …
Read More »Massive push for Toy Story 3
The latest Toy Story game hits retail next month and Disney is expecting it to be ‘an absolute smash hit’. As the follow-up to 1999’s movie sequel, Toy Story 3 already has huge backing from Disney with a massive cinema and internet marketing campaign. The global Toy Story property has …
Read More »Rockstar triggers market Redemption
Following five months of decline, the UK games market has finally posted a year-on-year increase. The launch of Red Dead Redemption helped the UK games market post a sales rise of 12 per cent last month when compared to the same period in 2009. But unit sales were down slightly …
Read More »Pre-owned drives HMV games growth
HMV has stated that despite what it describes as a very challenging year” for the video games market that saw it decline 25 per cent year-on-year, the retailer has gained market share in the sector – thanks in part to an increasing contribution” from its pre-owned offer Re/Play. Overall sales …
Read More »Hasbro considering more Transformers games
Aaron Archer, the senior designer of both the Transformers and GI Joe brands at toy giant Hasbro, has said that the company is in talks with Activision over the possibility of further titles based on the Transformers IP. Speaking at Transformers fan convention BotCon, Kotaku reports that the success of …
Read More »THQ questions TV marketing
Danny Bilson, the VP of core games at publisher THQ, has questioned whether the huge costs of TV marketing can still be justified in the increasingly multimedia dominated world of the modern games industry. Publishers such as EA and Ubisoft have in recent times made big-noise about high-profile TV spends …
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