04 Issue 688 Friday May 18th 2012 £3.25 AVENGERS WOWS BOX OFFICE ASGAMES MAKE A PALTRY £8M.WHERE ARE OUR BLOCKBUSTERS? Holding out for a hero by Christopher Dring
HIGH STREET bosses are begging games publishers for ‘summer blockbusters’ to rival major movies such as The Avengers– otherwise, the increased focus on Q4 will kill off specialist retail. The UK games software retail market slumped to just £8.5m in sales last week. It’s the lowest weekly figure in well over a decade. In contrast, latest movie blockbuster Avengers Assemblebroke UK records with an opening Box Office of £15.8m in just three days. Consumers are ready to spend on big-ticket entertainment – but
there are no games to buy. New releases Max Payne 3, Diablo IIIand Ghost Recon: Future Soldierwill give specialists some relief. But after that the summer schedule is sparse. “We would love to see some blockbusters earlier in the year, there is no question about that whatsoever,” HMV CEO Simon Fox told MCV. “It would be fantastic to have some summer releases when there is a real appetite from the customer to buy games.” The summer time games drought comes ahead of the most potentially lucrative
Hollywood would never bring its Top 20 franchises together in Q4 and have nothing else for the entire year. Gerry Butler, Blockbuster
“ IN THIS ISSUE
02 BEST FIFA EVER? EA reveals the new features that will make FIFA 13a ‘game changer’
03 MORE MOSHI Mind Candy confirms it is working on the follow-up to the record-breaking DS game
07 CONSOLE CONTRACTS Will Microsoft’s subsidised hardware offer become the future for all games devices?
14 RETAIL VS GAME Blockbuster and HMV lay out their plans to win over former GAME customers
37 CHARTS
Seven pages of the latest charts, with data from Xbox Live, PSN, Steam, Apple, Android and retail
Q4 in games history. Even at this pre-E3 stage, seven major titles are set to arrive over seven weeks in October and November: Halo 4, Medal of Honor: Warfighter, Hitman Absolution, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, Dishonored, Resident Evil 6 and Assassin’s Creed III. “Huge blockbuster games so close together becomes unaffordable,” said Fox. Blockbuster commercial director Gerry Butler added: “The movie industry
Cinema’s success with The Avengers shows that punters are willing to pay for big- budget entertainment
would never bring the Top 20 franchises together in Q4 and have nothing else for the entire year. There’s not a lot of triple-A games coming out in June. The movie industry just doesn’t do that. “I’d like to see the
publishers spread the titles out more evenly. That is better for them. And I do think Over the next two to three years that will actually happen.”