MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Just hours after MCV revealed that Sony has been clearing the channel in preparation for its PS3 price cut on Tuesday it now appears as if Microsoft could be preparing an Xbox 360 price cut to counter the move. Kotaku has become the latest website to claim that Microsoft is …
Read More »JAPAN: Market declines by 24%
The bad news continues for the troubled Japanese games industry with new stats from Famitsu-owning Enterbrain showing that the total value of the region’s games market is down 24.4 per cent year-on-year for the period between December 29th and June 28th. A slump in hardware sales of 27.6 per cent …
Read More »Sony responds to Koticks PS3 outburst
Following Bobby Kotick’s extraordinary claim that his company, Activision Blizzard, may stop supporting the PS3, Sony has declined to volley back public mud and has instead offered a calm and measured response. "PlayStation has tremendous momentum coming out of E3,” said spokesperson Patrick Seybold, and we are seeing positive growth …
Read More »New low for non-food retailers
Non-food retailers have experienced their worst month since July 1992, after sales fell by three per cent on 2008. Official figures released by the Office of National Statistics show that overall retail sales fell by 1.6 per cent compared to the previous year. To read the full story, click here …
Read More »Activision boss threatens to drop PS3
The boss of the world’s biggest games publisher has issued a remarkable warning to Sony – cut the price of PS3 or Activision could the plug on its PlayStation development. Speaking in an interview with The Times, Bobby Kotick stated: I’m getting concerned about Sony – the PS3 is losing …
Read More »NPD: Hardware suffers sharp dip
Mirroring the overall decline seen in the US video games market in May, hardware sales for the period suffered a sharp fall – year-on-year sales of consoles dropped 30 per cent, hitting $302,500. Software was on the decline, too, albeit by a lesser extent. Compared to May 2008 total software …
Read More »Sony hit by $1bn annual losses
PlayStation platform holder Sony has reported losses of $1.04bn for the year ending March 31st – a stark dip compared to the $3.7bn profit seen in the same period in 2008. It is the company’s first annual loss of 14 years, though it’s not as bad as the previously predicted …
Read More »Nokia profits plunge 90%
2009 has proved to be a testing time for Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia, with the telecoms specialist reporting a 90 per cent fall in profits for Q1 2009. Net profits reached €122m, heavily down on the €1.2bn in the same period in 2008. Sales were also down, dropping 27 …
Read More »Wii manufacturing costs have dropped 45% since launch
A global business analyst at Credit Suisse has claimed that the cost of manufacturing a Wii console has dropped by 45 per cent since the system launched in 2006. Furthermore, Kotaku reports that the analyst believes these drops will pave the way for a Wii price drop later this year …
Read More »Koller: PS2 could steal Wii market share
Sony Computer Entertainment America’s hardware marketing boss John Koller has stated that he believes the recent price drops to PS2 in the Europe and the US – though not in the UK – could see the PS2 eat into Wii’s market share. We do think the $99 price point could …
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