The Market For Computer & Video Games
EVERY BUYER EVERY BRANCH EVERY WEEK Issue 618 Friday December 17th 2010 £3.25 In the bleak midwinter
Snow chaos costs retail billions Games stranded at depots Online halt on Xmas orders by Christopher Dring
RETAIL is feeling the chill as Arctic weather threatens to bring the country to a standstill this week. Several big December releases – including World of Warcraft: Cataclysm– failed to hit stores in time for launch in recent weeks as icy weather disrupted key deliveries.
Now games outlets are drawing up emergency plans to cope with more December snow, which could force store closures, delay deliveries and limit footfall. Online retailers are telling customers their parcelsmay not reach them in time for December 25th. MCV understands key games retailers will stop taking Christmas mail orders tomorrow if snow persists. Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Asda have already stopped taking orders for non-food items in Scotland. Meanwhile, High Street retailers are sending their own vans to pick up stock from overflowing distribution hubs, which are struggling to clear the backlog. Delivery companies including Parcelforce and DPD have issued warnings to
Edinburgh returns with Yarnton as chairman
by Michael French
EDINBURGH Interactive will return in 2011 with a new chairman in Nintendo UK chief David Yarnton, MCVcan reveal. Edinburgh Interactive
takes place on August 11th and 12th. MCVand its sister
The December snow has slowed the distribution of games stock in the UK –and has all but frozen mail order sales
businesses of delays of up to seven days as the weather worsens. The trouble at the delivery hubs has already wreaked havok on new titles.
The snow has hit at the worse time for games retail, with the trade hoping for a Q4 turnaround following nine months of slow sales. Retail needs to sell 20 million games and generate £313m in revenue in order to match last year’s software sales figure. Retail analysts say the big freeze has cost the High Street billions.
“Scotland is badly affected in terms of logistics,” said Verdict director Neil
Saunders. “Internet orders will drop off a cliff. I believe a lot of people will just move their spend onto the High Street, but the big concern is what will happen if things get bad again. Retail will be praying the weather does not disrupt things further.”
RETAIL will not match 2009’s sales figures, despite a Q4 sales surge. Record-breaking sales for
FIFA 11and Black Opshave helped retail beat last year’s Q4 numbers. According to MCV
calculations based on Chart- Track data, retail needs to sell more than 20m units and make
SPECIAL CHRISTMAS ISSUE OF MCV
UBI IN CHARGE Rob Cooper takes the hot seat as Guest Editor of MCV– celebrating his ten years as managing director of Northern Europe for Ubisoft
04 3D HITS THE BIG TIME Both Nintendo and Sony talk of their plans to help 3D games content reach the tipping point in the next year
21 REVIEW OF THE YEAR We look back at the year that was, pick the best quotes from the last 12 months and offer up our annual quiz
37 HOUSE PROUD SCEE president Andrew House talks about all things PlayStation in our exclusive interview
“
Scotland is very badly affected. Internet orders will drop off a cliff this week. Neil Saunders, Verdict
MARKET DOWN AS SECTOR FRAGMENTS
£313m in three weeks to match 2009’s full-year figure. Codemasters CEO Rod
Cousens said that the dip is due to market changes: “How much of it has been offset by downloads? What percentage was pre-owned? What was the impact from supermarkets? All of these are factors so I’m not sure it was so bad.”
brands Develop, Mobile Entertainmentand
Licensing.bizare also on- board with a wide-ranging media partnership. “I have always been a strong supporter of Edinburgh as it is a truly bi-partisan event that celebrates all the diversity that is good with our industry and leaves egos at the door,” Yarnton said. Partnership and
speaker enquiries should go to event director Alexa Turness via +44 (0) 1462 456 780 or alexa.turness @
bhpr.co.uk.
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