MCV December 7th 2012

NEWS

“Devil May Cry has always sold better in the West than it has in Japan. There was no commerical decison to Westernise it.” MCV quizzess Capcom about the reinvention of Devil May Cryp22

November game sales struggle as retailers bank on late Christmas

6.4m games sold in four weeks, but that’s down year-on-year

by Christopher Dring UK RETAILERS made £211.3m from video game sales last month. That’s a big number, a jump of 154 per cent over October. But unfortunately the market is still tracking behind 2011. In terms of revenue, UK physical game sales were down 22.2 per cent year-on-year last month. In terms of units, 6.36m games were sold, a drop of 23 per cent over the 8.26m sold during November 2011.

“ by Christopher Dring

MCV’S Retail Advisory Board has two new members – Amazon’s Ketu Patel and GameStop’s Niall Lawlor. Patel joins the RAB following the departure of Graham Chambers, who left Amazon to join Scottish- based mobile developer Tag Games in September. Patel has worked at Amazon for almost four

by Christopher Dring

SUPERMARKET giant Asda wants to double the number of music, videos and games it sells online.

The firm currently has around 6,000 films, CDs and games on its website, which according to stat tracker Hitwise is one of the fastest-growing sites in the UK. But that number is

4 December 7th 2012

‘nowhere near’ enough, says trading director Frazer Locke. “Our big gap for me in music, video and games is about range,” he said.

“This time last year we had

12,000 SKUs on the site across all Asda categories – now we have 25,000. So we’ve doubled the range. We have

The High Street is anticipating a late Xmas rush.

It means the much hoped for market turnaround has yet to materialise. The British Retail Consortium said last week that the High Street is anticipating a last minute Christmas rush,

UK RETAIL NOVEMBER TOP TEN

1. Call of Duty: Black Ops II ....................................................Activision 2. Assassin’s Creed III ......................................................................Ubisoft 3. Halo 4................................................................................................Microsoft 4. FIFA 13............................................................................................................EA 5. Need for Speed: Most Wanted ......................................................EA 6. Hitman Absolution............................................................ Square Enix 7. Skylanders Giants ....................................................................Activision 8. WWE ‘13 ....................................................................................................THQ 9. Football Manager 2013 ..................................................................Sega 10. Just Dance 4......................................................................................Ubisoft

which

tallies with recent

comments from MCV’s Retail

Advisory Board, with one retail exec predicting that “Christmas is happening later this year.”

The biggest selling game of the month was, unsurprisingly, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, with Assassin’s Creed III in second and Halo 4 in third.

Amazon and Gamestop join MCV RAB

years. He also collected Amazon’s MCV Award for best mainstream retailer at this year’s ceremony. Meanwhile, GameStop’s VP and general manager for Northern Europe Niall Lawlor joins the board following the departure of Michael Finucane.

Lawlor said: “I’m looking forward to joining the MCV Retail Advisory Board at this transformational time

for our industry. Our goal is to ensure that GameStop Europe is the market leader in the next console cycle.” Lawlor and Patel join a raft of big name buyers on the board, including execs from GAME, HMV, Blockbuster, Asda, Tesco, Sainsbury’s Morrisons and Play.com. The RAB was set up to

Amazon’s Patel joins the RAB

keep MCV up-to-date on the latest trade happenings. MCV: 01992 515 303

Asda Direct: ‘We need to stock more games’

6,000 music, videos and games. Is it enough? Nowhere near. We’re looking at how to expand that, whether that is via partnerships or directly with suppliers. “At launch, we targeted an optimum level of 12,000 SKUs based on data from The Official Charts Company and Chart-Track. It has taken us a bit of time to get there. But we are on track for that.”

CHECK OUT THIS WEEK’S VIDEOS

Ni No Kuni

The Settlers Online Warriors Orochi 3 Hyper

Videos are available within the iPad Edition of MCVon iTunes and the browser-based Digital Edition, which can be accessed at MCVUK.com

In Brief

GAME: The firm is the first UK retailer to sell Steam Wallet codes from Valve, which enable users to buy games and DLC through Steam. Customers can buy codes worth £5, £10, £20 and £50. GAME is also offering extra trade-in value on selected games when used to purchase Steam Wallet, plus reward points.

MASTERTRONIC: The publisher has signed a deal with Bethesda to launch value-priced versions of its PC games. Titles include Fallout: New Vegas Ultimate Edition, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 5th Anniversary Edition, Rage, Brink andHunted.

IGN: Capcom’s most popular fighting franchises will be part of the IGN Pro League tournament in 2013. Next year’s eSports competition will include Capcom’s Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition and Street Fighter X Tekken.

THQ: A new pay-what-you- want charity bundle of THQ games helped the publisher’s stock price jump. Consumers can pay anything from $1 for the Humble THQ Bundle, which has raised more than $3m so far. Bidders who pay more than $5 recieved Saints Row: The Third.

www.mcvuk.com

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