MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Retailers will need to use every tactic at their disposal” – that’s the message from a leading High Street analyst today as it predicts a gloomy December at retail despite Chancellor Alistair Darling announcement of a VAT drop yesterday. Synovate Retail Performance has claimed that it now expects non-food shopping …
Read More »GameStop profits fall by $5M
GameStop saw its sales jump 5.2 per cent in the three-month period ending November 1st, but profits fell from $52 million to $46.7 million. The world’s largest games retailer also saw comparable store sales decrease by 1.8 per cent, primarily down to the launch of Halo 3 in September 2007, …
Read More »Afrika heading to West after all?
National Geographic announced earlier this week that it had established a games arm and would in future both develop and publish its own titles. However, of the two titles announced, namely National Geographic: King Herod and National Geographic: Africa, it seems that the latter may actually be SCEJ’s title. For …
Read More »Wretched month on UK High Street
Whilst shopping numbers have to date remained buoyant amidst the current global credit crunch, October stats from the Retail Traffic Index make for sombre reading for retail, with a 3.1 per cent year-on-year drop in shopping trips reported. The numbers were also 1.3 per cent down on September. Dr Tim …
Read More »Guitar Hero targeting musical instrument retail
Activision has revealed a plan to target a whole new segment of the market with its release of the fourth instalment to its music franchise, Guitar Hero: World Tour on November 14th. The publisher intends to get its game installed in a number of musical instrument outlets in an attempt …
Read More »Trade braced for street date challenge
An anxious UK trade is holding its collective breath over fears that some retailers might sell two of 2008’s biggest games early next week. On Wednesday November 5th Sony’s landmark PlayStation 3 release LittleBigPlanet, distributed by Centresoft, will hit shelves. Two days later on Friday (November 7th), Microsoft’s Xbox 360-exclusive …
Read More »Retail footfall drops in September
The latest figures from the SPSL’s Retail Traffic Index have shown that retail footfall fell 0.9 per cent in September compared to the previous month, with annual drops proving even more significant. The Retail Bulletin reports that August showed a surprise 0.1 per cent year-on-year increase in retail footfall, but …
Read More »GAME posts record first half profits
UK retail’s leading games specialist is in rude health, having revealed its interim results for the first six months ended July 31st 2008. The main highlights were record first half profits of 36.4m before non-recurring costs and tax, total Group sales growth of 54.1 per cent and a like-for-like sales …
Read More »Atari to back away from boxed product
Atari has revealed that 90 per cent of its output will be online-only in a few years as it increasingly favours online titles over traditional retail. The publisher’s recent deal with Namco Bandai includes a clause which gives the Japanese developer and publisher the option to buy Infogrames’ distribution business …
Read More »UK Xbox price cuts confirmed
UK consumers will be able to pick up an Xbox 360 console from just 129.99 after Microsoft confirmed its latest round of price cuts this morning. From Friday September 19th Microsoft’s console line-up will be tweaked to offer the entry-level Arcade SKU at 129.99, standard console with 60GB hard drive …
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