Game industry business news

Release version now available; Dream Build Play 2008 warm-up round also opens

After a storming year of success, Microsoft took the lion’s share of the praise in the 2007 MCV Retail Survey, with Nintendo also attracting a great deal of commendation from video game stores all across the country. The star-studded release of Halo 3 – which saw high calibre celebrity endorsement …

Forget the BAFTA’s, forget the Golden Joysticks – this is where the wheat gets well and truly separated from the chaff as retail casts its vote on the best performing companies in the video games trade this year. Microsoft took a big chunk of the praise, winning ‘highlight of the …

Since then, it could be argued, the market has been on a downward spiral. According to NPD research, retail sales have slumped from $1.5 billion in 2001 to a measly $970 million last year. On paper it doesn’t look too clever. Retailers drop PC shelf space and publishers want more …

Publisher MTV Games and developer Harmonix have hit out at the publisher Activision after the Guitar Hero owner blocked moves to release a patch that would enable its guitar peripheral to work with rival product Rock Band. In a statement issued to Next-Gen, an MTV rep stated: Two weeks ago, …

Following the publication of its Guide to Greener Electronics report last month , which blasted Nintendo for being the worst performing company it has ever rated on environmental issues, Greenpeace has launched a new website to highlight the environmental impact of games consoles. Fronted by a video featuring Mario, Master …

Microsoft to open up Xbox 360 development in education

There was a time when a console version of World of Warcraft was considered an inevitability by many in the industry, and whilst this now seems destined never to happen developer Blizzard has finally admitted that it is working on a brand new online offering, seemingly for consoles. The news …

The current shortage of Wii consoles on the UK High Street is well documented, but it seems that many UK shoppers are venturing abroad to claim their machines, according to The Daily Mirror . The newspaper claims that French Wii stock is more plentiful than here on this side of …

SCEJ has stated that the upcoming PSP firmware update that is due out worldwide on December 18th will allow Japanese users who own the PSP TV Tuner to turn their handheld into a portable TV recorder, Eurogamer reports. Firmware version 3.8 will allow TV tuner owners to select upcoming programming …