Games Industry Wire

Yoichi Wada, President of Square Enix, has issued a statement clarifying some comments his executives have made recently about the company’s plans to expand its overseas operations. The Japanese company, known primarily for RPGs such as the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest franchises, currently earns half its revenue from areas outside Japan. But Wada says the overseas markets have increased to more than three times the size of the Japanese market, and Square Enix aims to increase its presence in these areas.
“It is crucial for us to expand our businesses on a global basis,” said Wada. “Given the fact that …read more

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Microsoft today announced that the Xbox 360 exclusive game “Halo 3” has officially become the biggest entertainment launch in history, garnering an estimated $170 million in sales in the United States alone in the first 24 hours. The Xbox 360 title beat previous records set by blockbuster theatrical releases like “Spider-man 3” and novels such as “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.”
“Halo 3” is the conclusion to the epic trilogy and picks up where “Halo 2” left off, answering questions around the fates of the beloved protagonist Master Chief and his artificial intelligence sidekick Cortana as they struggle to save …read more

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News has come in that Matt Firor, Former head and founder of Mythic, will lead the Bethesda’s sister company in its quest to make MMOs as head of its online gaming division. Matt Firor will lead ZeniMax Online Studios as the new division works to create a still-unnamed massively-multiplayer online role-playing game out of its Bethesda, Md., offices.
ZeniMax is the parent company of Bethesda Softworks, creators of the Elder Scrolls series and the upcoming RPG Fallout 3. Bethesda has also developed a series of games based in the Star Trek universe. Firor worked at Mythic for ten years, where …read more

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Manga Shonen Jump says that the Nintendo DS will be seeing a portable version of Microsoft published 360 title Blue Dragon. According to Kotaku: “If Viva Piñata is good enough for the Nintendo DS, then heck, Microsoft published Blue Dragon should be too! A recent issue of manga Shonen Jump says that Blue Dragon will be getting a DS release. This is exactly why Microsoft shouldn’t make a handheld — put the games on the DS and get the players hooked so they’ll have no choice but to pony up for the 360 console versions. Isn’t this how drug dealers …read more

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Halo 3 has just launched this week, and it doesn’t take a financial analyst to tell you it’s going to be big. However, a financial analyst could be helpful if you want to know exactly how big the game’s launch will be. In a company update on Microsoft today, Goldman Sachs analysts Sarah Friar and Frederick Grieb predicted that Microsoft will have shipped an astounding 4.2 million copies of Halo 3 into the retail channel by the end of the month. That’s a big-enough launch shipment for more than a third of the Xbox 360’s 11.6 million global user base …read more

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Square Enix is considered an institution in Japan, where new entries into its hugely successful Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series drawing crowds akin to a new console launch. The Tokyo-based publisher also has a big following in North America–but not big enough, according to a recent Financial Times report. Over the weekend at the 2007 Tokyo Game Show, the Times spoke with Square Enix senior vice president Michihiro Sasaki. The executive explained that in the coming months, the publisher wants to strike a deal with an American partner to help market its games stateside.

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Rumors around the web have hinted that Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is being delayed until 2008. These rumors came about when everal online retailers moved the game’s ship date to the first quarter of next year. Mercenaries 2 publisher EA and the developer Pandemic have given no official comment until now. It’s official. Mercenaries 2 is being delayed. IGN spoke with Pandemic Studios’ President and Co-Founder Josh Resnick about the reasons for the delay and to see where development stands at this point.

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Japan’s Computer Entertainment Supplier’s Association has announced Wii Sports and Monster Hunter 2: Portable 2nd have won its yearly Grand Awards. Not surprisingly, the Best Sales Award has gone to Nintendo’s Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl for raking in over 4.9 million sales in Japan, with a total worldwide sales figure of over 10 million units as of July 2007.

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Sony has recently revealed that the recently launch PSP Slim & Lite has sold around 17,000 units on its first week of release in the UK. The Slim & Lite PSP launched on September 14 and was backed by radio and online advertising campaigns that have helped boost Sony’s handheld sales going into the holiday season.

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According to a series of recent reports by the research group DFC Intelligence, the PC game market could increase to $13 billion by the year 2012. DFC estimates that the videogame market will swell to $47 billion by 2009, a 42 percent increase over the $33 billion generated by the industry in 2006. That forecast includes revenue from videogame hardware and software, dedicated portable system hardware and software (i.e. the DS and PSP – not mobile phones), PC games, and online PC and console games.

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