Retailer JB HiFi has officially admitted that it is selling imported stock in its Australian High Street stores. MCV Pacific reports that, as in the UK, specialist games retailers in the country face growing pressure from price-focused mass-market retailers. In addition, the import scene lives on in Australia, partly due …
Read More »GameStop posts 12.5% like-for-like Q1 decline
That it outperformed the market” will likely not completely appease GameStop’s shareholders after the company reported a 12.5 per cent decline in like-for-like sales for its fiscal Q1. Total global sales fell $280k to 2bn. Net earnings for the quarter fell slightly to $72.5m. Pre-owned sales suffered a slight decline, …
Read More »OPINION: It’s May, and already Q4 is hurting retail
Sometimes the games industry can get too caught up in willy waving with other forms of entertainment. But this week comparisons with cinema are fair, if only to remind us how rough things are for games retail at the moment. The UK’s boxed software market has generated 320m this year, …
Read More »Q4 focus could kill off specialist retail
Where are OUR summer blockbusters? That’s the question being asked by games retail bosses this week as the UK games market slumped to a new low. Retailers are begging games publishers for ‘summer blockbusters’ to rival major movies such as The Avengers – otherwise, the increased focus on Q4 will …
Read More »Cave scraps Vita titles as COO resigns
Questions are being asked about the future of shmup specialist Cave. Andriasang reports that the studio has cancelled both of its previously announced Vita titles – one a social game and the other an unknown shooter. In addition, the company has also confirmed that VP and COO Miko Watanabe is …
Read More »FEATURE: 2012’s biggest TV advertisers
Jonathan Chambers, AV manager at media planning and buying specialist Generation Media, looks at how much impact publishers and platform holders have had on TV advertising so far, how this year’s investments stand up against 2011 and who the top advertisers are… TV remains essential to games and consoles advertising, …
Read More »Blockbuster: Games retail would not survive without pre-owned
Specialist games retailers cannot survive without second-hand, says Blockbuster. The firm’s UK commercial director Gerry Butler has hit back at trade-in critics, and told MCV that the current new release business model is broken and in need of a radical overhaul. If you’re a specialist you need certain margins to …
Read More »Meet the UK’s newest games retailer – Gamefly
Gamefly was never planning to come to the UK. The US rental retailer – which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary – had ruled out going international. But that was before it bought Direct2Drive, and instantly owned one of the world’s most established digital retailers. The advantages for us in …
Read More »PEGI ratings now set for July
The much-delayed implementation of the PEGI age rating system should finally happen in July, says UKIE. It’s been over four years since The Byron Review, and almost three years since PEGI was chosen as the organisation that will rate video games going forward. It was even passed into law as …
Read More »Namco Bandai ramps up download business
Dark Souls for PC and One Piece for PS3 will be available to download and buy on the High Street at the same time. Namco Bandai says the move is part of its bid to extend its games IP across multiple platforms. But US VP Carlson Choi expects retail will …
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