MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Though we’re unlikely to see any delays to the UK’s continental-based video games deliveries unless the disruption continues for far longer, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajkull volcano is causing major disruptions to Australia’s video games supplies. Much of Europe is currently in the midst of a travel clampdown, with ash spewing from the …
Read More »Ubisoft ditches instruction manuals
In a move that will strike horror into the aged games collector but most likely mean very little to younger games fans, publisher Ubisoft has announced that it is to ditch paper instruction manuals for its Xbox 360 and PS3 games from this autumn. The fingering of a game manual …
Read More »US: 7-Eleven to sell pre-owned games
In a move akin to Budgens or Cost Cutter introducing such a range to its stores in the UK, American retail behemoth 7-Eleven has confirmed that it is to begin selling pre-owned video games in 50 per cent of its US outlets. This represents a total of over 3,000 outlets. …
Read More »EA and Battlefield dominate March
The value of the UK games software market fell in March by seven per cent year-on-year, according to ELSPA/GfK Chart-Track. The monthly charts show that EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was the biggest selling title of the month, followed by Final Fantasy XIII and Ubisoft’s evergreen hit Just Dance. These …
Read More »Zushi Games goes into administration
UK publisher Zushi Games has confirmed to MCV that it has entered administration. The company’s co-founder and chairman Ian Stewart declined to comment further until the ongoing litigation processes are complete. According to Companies House’s listings, Zushi Games officially entered administration on March 18th and has a receivership action against …
Read More »Natal, Move to revolutionise fitness games’
It may be the core consumers that are currently championing the potential of Microsoft’s Project Natal and Sony’s PlayStation Move – but it could be non-gamers that benefit the most from the new hardware. Publishers and developers that specialise in fitness titles and other non-games software have said that their …
Read More »Porn virus targets games pirates
Piracy is bad and you shouldn’t do it. You don’t agree? Well, here’s another reason not to pirate games – your illicit midnight online porn habit could be exposed to the world. CVG reports that a new Trojan called Kenzero is targeting online pirates downloading Japanese Hentai games (pornographic anime). …
Read More »Crytek foresees ‘the end of free demos’
The CEO of indie studio Crytek has defended EA’s divisive ‘premium downloadable content’ strategy, while also predicting the extinction of free game demos. In an interview with Develop, Crytek’s co-founder Cevat Yerli said he wasn’t sure that a demo of Crysis 2 was going to be released. He also said …
Read More »Average Wii price down to £155
The price of the Nintendo Wii has tumbled at retail.MCV’s research, which monitored the sale of hardware across 25 leading UK retailers, shows that the average price of Wii is now 155.56. That’s 24.43 (13.6 per cent) less than its expected price of 179.99. WHSmith is selling the Wii for …
Read More »Retail MUST go to E3
The UK games trade needs to attend E3 this year, says show host the ESA. The organiser has told MCV it plans to dramatically ramp up last year’s number of international attendees as it establishes E3 as an event not just for North America. Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft are all …
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