Retail

Best Buy has refuted growing industry chatter about a partnership with European games specialist, GAME. Several industry nose-tappers have suggested the US retail giant is looking to buy GAME outright. Meanwhile, others suggested that branded in-store concessions would appear in Best Buy’s UK outlets when they open in the spring, …

Publisher Warner Interactive has announced that it has shipped over 1m copies of its critically acclaimed DS title Scribblenauts since it was first released last September. The game uses an innovative mechanic that requires users to spell out the name objects needed to solve puzzles and fight enemies. To date …

How-To-Draw author Christopher Hart wants to launch a series of art games that utilises the DS stylus, as well as Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3’s motion controllers. Hart’s books, which teach readers to draw a wide range of subjects – from Manga to human anatomy – have sold more than …

MCV’s vital weekly retail digest, RetailBiz, is available to view online and download now. Sony’s ambitious online first-person shooter MAG has debuted at No.1 in the PlayStation 3 charts. Given its multiplayer only focus, the game’s success is a testament to how prolific online functionality has become in games. MAG …

Retail giants Wal-Mart and Best Buy have pulled out of a plan to extend their reach in the games market via automatic store-based kiosks. In May last year Wal-Mart teamed up with E-Play to place kiosks in 80 of its 3,600 U.S. stores, while Best Buy also carried the experiment …

Gamers could face an unwelcome price hike at some stage this year as the price of procuring polycarbonate – a key material in the disc manufacturing process – continues to rise. DigiTimes reports that wholesale prices remained static throughout 2009 despite the increasing manufacturing costs, However, should the price of …

MCV’s vital weekly retail digest, RetailBiz, is available to view online and download now. Our essential six-page supplement offers an in-depth look at this week’s official Gfk-ChartTrack multiformat Top 40 – topped this week by EA’s Mass Effect 2 – as well as all of the official UK single and …

Valve’s popular digital distribution network Steam now has over 25m members, the Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead developer and thriving distribution platform owner has revealed. Member numbers surged 25 per cent in 2009. Of the registered members, 10m are described as having profiles in the Steam Community. The peak …

Russian publisher 1C made $1m in revenue from digital sales over Christmas, the firm has told MCV. The revenue was generated through December and the New Year. 1C’s key titles also proved to be big sellers digitally even when shops were closed – 14,000 copies of Kings Bounty: Armored Princess …

The creators of market rivals Guitar Hero and Rock Band have insisted that the future is bright for the music games genre, with the rising prominence of user-created content driving continued success. Throughout 2009 sales of music games fell by nearly 50 per cent to $1bn in North America. I …