News (Page 3885)

Japanese publisher Sega has revised its financial forecasts for the first half of the current financial year and for the year as a whole, citing improved sales of both arcade and home console products as reasons.

The first official statement from Finnish mobile phone giant Nokia on the launch of its N-Gage game deck has claimed that the device is sold out at many retailers following a "very positive" consumer response.

Japan's largest game publisher, Nintendo, has purchased a significant amount of stock in toy and media giant Bandai, causing many Japanese media sources to speculate that a buy-out may be on the cards in the near future.

A group of key staff from the Silicon Dreams development studio, which was shut down last month, have formed a new company - Gusto Games - which will focus on developing online, community-driven titles.

UK-based console accessory specialist Datel is set to launch a smaller, lightweight alternative to Nintendo's Game Boy Player on October 24th, allowing gamers to play GBA titles on their GameCubes via the memory card slot.

Electronic Arts has purchased Destruction Derby Arenas developer Studio 33, best known for their collaborations with Sony, and incorporated the team into EA Northwest.

Shigeru Miyamoto's GameCube adaptation of Pac-Man, demonstrated for the first time at E3, will ship for free with copies of two upcoming Namco titles.

Scottish developer VIS Entertainment has revealed details of its new funding vehicle for forthcoming title State of Emergency 2, which it says will enable it to complete the project and negotiate good terms with a publisher.

Videogame publisher Konami has announced plans to expand its operations to a new office in Los Angeles, which will become the base for the company's global videogame business.

French newspaper Les Echos has reported that Vivendi has refused a substantial new offer for the Vivendi Universal Games business unit, and is still hoping to realise a billion dollars from the sale of the division.

Figures from videogame retailers around the UK are showing an extremely low sell-through of Nokia's new N-Gage game deck in its launch week, with fewer than 500 units sold by the 6,000 game stores polled by Chart-Track.

Electronic Arts' Tiger Woods PGA Tour 2004 clocks up a second week at the top of the UK sales charts this week, while there are new top ten entries for Codemasters' Club Football and the PC version of Halo: Combat Evolved.

Telecoms giant BT has announced the launch of new broadband packages aimed specifically at console online gamers, offering them an all-in-one solution to getting their Xbox or PS2 online.

Sony's PlayStation 2 is the most popular console in South Korea by an overwhelming margin, according to a recent survey, despite Microsoft's best efforts to establish the Xbox in this emerging marketplace.

Tom Hall and John Romero, formerly the key names behind Ion Storm and Monkeystone Games, have joined Midway's San Diego development studio to work on a variety of new projects for the publisher.

Nintendo UK has jubilantly announced a four-fold increase in sales of the GameCube hardware in the two days following its recent price cut to £79, although even this major boost can't lift it past its home console rivals.

The heavily new release driven Japanese software market has fallen back dramatically this week as few new releases graced retail shelves, with Hudson's PS2 RPG release Far East of Eden II taking the top spot.

New question marks have been raised over the launch date of Valve’s Half-Life 2, which is thought to have been pushed back to 2004, with EB Games in the USA now listing the title for a November launch once again.

Sony sold 33 per cent less units of the PS2 in Japan during the first half of 2003 compared with the same period in 2002, according to new figures published last week which also show the GameCube making gains.

Major UK catalogue retailer Argos has re-introduced Nintendo's GameCube to its range several months after dropping it, with newspaper advertisements promoting the console at its new UK price point.

Microsoft's Xbox may not be receiving ports of key Sega arcade titles OutRun 2 and Virtua Cop 3 after all, with the company still unsure about demand for the titles on home consoles.