Activision Blizzard has successfully retained its publishing and distribution agreement with LucasArts.
The publishing giant will be LucasArts’ partner for a number of key releases in times ahead, in areas such as Europe, South-East Asia and Australia. The new deal comes after a series of commercially successful game releases between the partnership.
Sony’s Playstation 3 has outsold all its handheld and home console competitors in Japan for the first time.
Sales of the PS3 jumped 20,000 units during the week ending March 1; up from 16,149 to 36,513 in line with the runaway sales success of Sega’s Yakuza 3. The PS3 exclusive title sold 372,000 copies in its first week.
Troubled publisher THQ has announced that its key RTS series – Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – has topped the PC charts in significant markets across the world.
According to data compiled by both NPD and GfK, Relic’s acclaimed title has taken to the top of the PC charts in the UK, North America, Australia, Germany, France and Spain.
“We have built Dawn of War into a premier PC gaming franchise based on the Warhammer 40,000 universe,” says Brian Farrell, THQ CEO.
Gamestop shares fell over 13 percent on Thursday following Amazon’s announcement that it will enter the games trade market.
The North American retail giant saw trading end the day prior at $27.3, yet on Thursday its shares fell as low as $22.42 while rival retail outlet Amazon announced it was going to compete in the pre-owned market.
The lure of the lucrative used games business was too strong for leading online retailer Amazon to ignore, as the company unveiled this week a program that will have customers exchanging their old games for Amazon.com store credit, a business model that that can result in fat margins if executed precisely.
GameStop CEO Dan DeMatteo isn't concerned about online retailer Amazon's venture into the used videogame trade-in business--not in the least.
"I give the probability of this working at zero," DeMatteo told Edge in a Thursday phone interview.
Amazon this week introduced a program in which consumers can ship, for free, games in good condition and receive an Amazon gift card in an amount dependent on predetermined trade-in values.
Ex-Midway Games majority shareholder Sumner Redstone and his daughter, former Midway chair Shari Redstone, have been subpoenaed by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Massachusetts amidst questions regarding the sale of the Chicago-based games publisher to investor Mark Thomas.
The PS3 and PSP have passed a new sales milestone in the U.K.
Sony Computer Entertainment U.K. head Ray Maguire tells trade paper MCV that the home and handheld consoles have sold over 2 million and 3 million units in the region, respectively.
The announcement comes after the late February release of the highly-anticipated PS3 exclusive first-person shooter, Killzone 2.
Apple Corps, MTV Games and Harmonix have announced release details for their upcoming Beatles-based music game.
The title is officially titled The Beatles: Rock Band, and will release simultaneously on Xbox 360, PS3 and Wii in North America, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and other territories on September 9 this year. It's the first time that music from The Beatles will be in a videogame.
Publishers and developers irked with the secondhand market will have another outlet to contend with, and it's not some mom and pop store.
Online retailer Amazon.com is now selling used games, and accepting trade-ins from customers. The company launched a beta for the service this week.
The online casual games market is growing rapidly, as anyone involved with the industry will attest.
Opportunities for advertising and cross-promotion with correlated media products are emerging as the bulk of the communications industry is consolidated on the Internet. There is such a high volume of entertainment choices on the Internet that, for a casual games portal, it takes a lot of careful planning and execution to stand out from the crowd.
A new study claims that 69 percent of children want parents to be more involved in checking the games they play.
The survey, carried out as part of Microsoft’s second annual Play Smart, Play Safe study, shows that half of young gamers believe their parents are not concerned enough with the games they play.
Of the young people surveyed, 47 percent said that their parents “never” get involved in their gaming pursuits, or do not do so enough.
The following article is an abridged version taken from the latest issue of Edge. A more thorough report on the game can be found in issue 199, which is on sale now. Subscribe (America).
Dark Void
PC/PS3/XBox 360
Capcom
Airtight Studios
US Release: TBA
UK Release: TBA
Origin: US
American electronics retail specialist Best Buy has delayed the launch of its first UK Store until next year.
Last year the Carphone Warehouse sold 50 percent of its retail business to Best Buy for some £1.1 billion, as both groups embarked on a joint venture to spread the American retailer’s presence into the UK.
UK MP Keith Vaz spoke out against violent videogame content yesterday during Prime Minister’s Questions.
Opening the session, the Labour MP submitted his question to his party’s deputy leader, Harriet Harman, citing the recent BBFC-funded survey on violent game content.
Casual game company PlayFirst, whose portfolio includes Diner Dash, is under new management.
Mari Baker will be replacing company co-founder John Welch as CEO. Welch has been a highly-visible proponent of casual and online social gaming. There's word on where he is headed.
In addition, PlayFirst announced that Jim Wandrey joined the company in late 2008 as CFO.
Baker has over 20 years experience in consumer technology, according to a press statement, working with companies such as Quicken and BabyCenter where she held top positions.
THQ wants to get back on track, and it's counting on innovation, laser-like product focus and quality to make that happen, according to chief exec Brian Farrell.
The Agoura Hills, Calif.-based publisher has encountered its share of difficulties lately, recently announcing a headcount reduction of 600 workers, or 24 percent of its global workforce. The company currently employs over 1,000 people.
Now the company is eyeing profitability in the next year.
THQ's unique paint-splattering Wii game de Blob has sold over 700K units worldwide, CEO Brian Farrell said on Tuesday during the Goldman Sachs Technology and Internet Conference in San Francisco.
Even in a wretched retail environment, the game has been able to hold its original $49.99 price point after about five months of availability. “We can make money on games like that," Farrell said.
A BBC report is calling a bond buying blunder involving Street Fighter maker Capcom one of the biggest mistakes ever on the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
A UBS Security Japan employee this week attempted to buy 30 million yen ($306K) of bonds in Capcom, but due to a supposed computer glitch, ordered 3 trillion yen's worth ($31 billion) instead.
The order was relatively easy to cancel as it was an after-hours electronic order, analysts said. UBS denied that the mistake was human error.
Nintendo of America says it has an upcoming software lineup that "demonstrates gaming diversity."
The company released a 120-game roster across the Wii and DS that includes newly-announced Excitebots: Trick Racing, which is due April 20, Punch-Out!!!, due May 18 and a few GameCube "Wii-makes" that are due in the coming months, among other titles.
DS covers a wide variety of genres with games like Trackmania, Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor, Rhythm Heaven and Nintendo's Personal Trainer: Walking.
It’s quite striking to put into perspective how far LostWinds has travelled in recent times.
Inspired by little more than a window-scene of foliage being thrown around on a windy afternoon, Frontier Developments’ Steve Burgess struck an idea for a game where the power of wind could be manipulated by the Wii Remote.
Frontier Developments was one of the mystery parties that had declared an interest in buying Free Radical, Edge can reveal.
Yet Frontier founder David Braben explains that “there was an issue” which made the Cambridge-based outfit pull out of discussions to acquire the fallen developer.
The following article is an abridged version taken from the latest issue of Edge. The full feature can be found in issue 199, which is on sale now in the UK and is already in the hands of UK and North American subscribers.
UK games industry charity GamesAid has today announced that it has raised over £125,000 since October 2008.
British publisher and developer Codemasters had individually raised over £100,000 of that number, from sales of Colin McRae: DIRT, while media network Eurogamer added another £16,000 to that figure.
The Entertainment Software Association is currently revising its membership fees policy.
The group's announcement follows revelations that it had spiked its membership fees by nearly 1700% in the past two years, quite possibly being the reason why several publishers - from Activision to LucasArts - have recently left the association.