Supermarket Asda has thrown down the Q4 gauntlet to its retail rivals, warning that it now has the resources in place to step up its increasingly aggressive move into gaming.

Head of games Duncan Cross told MCV that having established a new games buying team and struck a deal to work with EUK in recent months, the supermarket is now fully prepared to make even greater progress in the games retail market, increasing store space for games and focusing on big game launches after the success of last year’s FIFA ’07 release.

“We’ve already exploded our store space for games and as the market grows that will continue – we have major plans for Q4 because our games category is outperforming the rest of the market and that will continue,” said Cross.

“We are growing the team and moving into a new stage in the games team’s development. We will have a dedicated Asda team alongside the EUK trading team. It’s not just a case of the EUK team buying for Asda – we will work closely to exploit the opportunities that are presented to us and the in-house Asda team will pull it all together.”