Rob Fahey (Page 104)

Following reports that Japanese retailers had unofficially slashed the price of the Sony PSX hybrid media system, the company has now dropped the official RRP of the devices to less than two thirds of the original price.

Magazine publisher Future Network has announced its interim results for the first half of 2004, showing a rise in both circulation and advertising revenues and continued growth of its share of the games magazine market.

Electronic Arts' hugely anticipated arcade racer Burnout 3: Takedown has gone straight in at number one in the UK leisure software chart, with the Xbox SKU becoming the fourth fastest selling Xbox title ever in the process.

The financial performance of Vivendi Universal Games continued to decline through the first half of 2004, according to the latest figures released by its giant parent company, with losses of 156 million Euro recorded for the period.

Leading UK videogame retail chain GAME has made an aggressive move into the online retail space with the acquisition of online retailer Gameplay, which is expected to continue to operate as a separate brand.

Vivendi Universal Games announced today that it has signed a global distribution agreement with HD Interactive to distribute Nexus - The Jupiter Incident, which will be launched next month.

The latest entry to the handheld console market, Gizmondo, is set to launch on October 29th - with the UK leading the rest of the world, where the powerful games, multimedia and communication device will roll out during 2005.

LucasArts' eagerly awaited title Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2 has moved forward in the release schedules, and will now arrive before the end of the year - but only on Xbox, and only in North America.

Details of Nintendo's promotion plans for the DS console in Japan have emerged at last, with the company planning to bring the new handheld to five major cities in November, around the time of its launch.

Publisher Take Two Interactive has announced a $14.4 million loss in the third quarter of 2004, slightly underperforming marker expectations, but all eyes are on the firm's strong projections for GTA: San Andreas.

Two of Sony's biggest forthcoming titles have been unveiled ahead of their first showing at the Tokyo Game Show later this month - including the long-awaited announcement of the next game from the team behind cult classic ICO.

Konami's World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 exceeded a million sales in Japan this week, three weeks faster than the previous game in the series, despite overall slow sales which saw the market sink by a further 25 per cent.

Mobile game specialist Elkware has announced the appointment of a new VP for America, with Domenica Dinkheller replacing Dirk Nagel, freshly promoted to head of sales worldwide, as head of the North American division.

The London games show triple event of Game Stars Live, European Games Network and European Developers Forum has confirmed dates for its 2005 events, as attendance figures for this year's shows are announced.

Several third-party publishers are planning to exhibit Nintendo DS titles at the Tokyo Game Show later this month, ensuring that the forthcoming handheld will have a presence despite Nintendo's decision to abstain.

Mobile entertainment specialists Tapwave are set to launch the Zodiac handheld in Europe within the next two months, with a price point and other launch details for the portable multimedia device set to be announced shortly.

A new job advertisement posted by game publisher LucasArts suggests that the Singapore digital animation studio opened by parent company Lucasfilm last month may be set to focus on videogame work.