News (Page 3915)

Nintendo is preparing for the launch of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire later this month with a "summer tour" of UK locations for the eagerly anticipated title, in association with soft drink Vimto.

Two new colour variations of the Game Boy Advance SP are set to launch in Europe in late October, celebrating the shipment of over a million SP consoles in the region since its launch on March 28.

Italy's oldest development studio, Trecision, has gone into liquidation after 12 years in business - but the company is hopeful that a buyer may step in to allow the completion of work on its forthcoming football title.

New Sega president Hisao Oguchi is set to restructure the company's nine game development subsidiaries, with four of the nine studios being consolidated into two new companies.

Authorities in Thailand are set to impose a strict curfew on online gaming which will see access to online game servers blocked between 10pm and 6am every day, with Internet cafes also facing curbs to their business hours.

Popular western-developed games and heavy focus on online gaming are two cornerstones of Microsoft's future plans for boosting the performance of Xbox in Japan, according to VP Peter Moore.

Sign up for ECTS and, er, some other stuff too. Probably.

Tomb Raider: Angel of Darkness took the top spot in the UK sales charts this week, selling more copies in its first week than any other previous Tomb Raider title - while Sony's Eye Toy: Play made a solid start at number two.

UK developer Warthog has been signed up to work with Electronic Arts on the publisher's next outing to Hogwarts this Christmas, but despite this coup it has issued a profit warning for its full year results at the end of this month.

George Harrison, Nintendo of America VP of marketing, has hinted strongly that Nintendo will not be rolling out any online strategy in this generation of hardware, although the company is looking into it for N5.

Major new releases from some of Japan's biggest publishers, including Sega, Nintendo, Capcom and Square Enix, saw the first major upturn in the software market in several weeks - with even an Xbox title making it into the top ten.

SCEE boss Chris Deering has spoken again about the company's plans for the PlayStation Portable, and for the forthcoming PSX, in an interview published in French newspaper Les Echos this week.

The GAME Group has issued a short trading update for the 21 weeks to June 28th, revealing the overall sales are up by 4.1 per cent so far this year, although like-for-like sales have declined 2.9 per cent.

Free-X, the Xbox hackers who were at the heart of the controversial attempt to extort a signed Linux boot loader for the console from Microsoft, claim that they have now released details of their software-only Xbox security exploits.

Publisher Majesco has announced that it is to continue its distribution agreement with Vivendi Universal Games into 2004/05, in a deal which will see VUG publishing 15 Majesco SKUs across multiple different platforms in Europe.

Leading UK retailer GAME has come under fire for breaking the street date of Eidos' latest Tomb Raider title by a full two days - but the company says it was simply responding to moves by its competitors.

Former Nintendo chairman Hiroshi Yamauchi has given an interview with Nihon Keizai Shimbun, with the legendary industry veteran giving his views on a wide range of topics with his trademark bluntness.

Following the promotion of Hisao Oguchi to president of Sega earlier this week, the company has named his replacement at the HitMaker studio - Virtua Tennis producer Mie Kumagai, who becomes Sega's first female studio president.

The full line-up of games due to the shown at Sony's PlayStation Experience 2003 event in London at the end of August has been unveiled, with visitors to the show set to be treated to first looks at over 70 games from 11 publishers.

French publisher Titus Interactive has rebranded its distribution subsidiary as Avalon Interactive, putting the long-standing Virgin Interactive name, once one of the industry's biggest publishers, to rest at last after years of difficulties.

Publisher Activision has filed a lawsuit against media giant Viacom for failing to make enough Star Trek, in a lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of the State of California yesterday.