“Bring out your undead!” cried Capcom to London Dead Rising fans, urging them to dress in their zombie finest for an early launch event at HMV on Oxford Street. The fans answered. More »
HMV is pretty sure games are going to be bigger than music, and as part of their slowly shifting focus they’re rolling out their very own pre-owned game program, HMV Re/Play. Launching this Friday across approximately 160 HMV Uk retail locations, the company will begin accepting game trade-ins across all major console and handheld platforms, exchanging used titles for store credit good for anything the store carries – DVD’s, games, and even music…but who buys CDs anymore? “Our launch into pre-played games and the acquisition of gamerbase.com underlines HMV’s long term commitment to games as it becomes an ever-increasing part of our overall product mix,” said HMV managing director Simon Fox.
Who goes to record stores anymore? I don’t really — unless I’m looking for something very, very specific. And other people don’t seem to be going as well. Heck, music retailer HMV announced that music sales are down 30 percent. But thankfully, people still get off their asses to go buy video games. Chief executive Simon Fox said:
Music is in our DNA and we are totally committed to it. But the fact is, the market is moving away from music — so we are giving more space in our stores to games… In games, we grew by just over 50 per cent, ahead of the market. And looking forward to Christmas… Within the next 12 to 18 months, it’s possible games will be bigger than music for us.
What happens when digital game distribution fully takes off? What then?
Game over [The Sun]
Strong video game sales, on both console and PC, helped drive retailer HMV to a 25 percent growth in their fiscal year results. The boost, the company says, will help it speed up the rollout of some fancy new stores.
Reported the UK Independent:
HMV said its pre-tax profits rose by 25.2 per cent to £56.6m and total sales grew by 11.3 per cent. Simon Fox, the chief executive, said: “A year ago, we said this would be a year for stabilising the business, but actually it turned into a year of growth. We are only one year into the three-year turnaround strategy, but we are definitely ahead of schedule”.
Fox also laid out exactly how much improving game sales had helped:
As a means to get a leg up on their busy, busy Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots launch duties, series creator Hideo Kojima and lead artist Yoji Shinkawa will be appearing at the HMV on Oxford Street in London, England next Monday, June 2nd, 19 days before the game releases. Rather than signing copies of the game itself, Kojima and Shinkawa will be signing exclusive HMV sleeves that will slide over your copy of MGS 4, available with your £5 deposit on the full game. Autographs will begin promptly at noon, with sleeves available from 9:00am.
While I suppose it would be much more appealing to have them signing copies of the game on launch day, it is nice to see Kojima and Shinkawa taking the time out of what is sure to be an extremely busy early June schedule to show the UK some MGS lovin’.
HMV can see the writing on the wall. Nobody buys CDs now. Nobody. But everyone buys games! Putting the two together, the British retail giant has announced that as CD revenues drop by an estimated 10% per year, they’ll be replacing them on the shelves with more games. But they’d best get a move on; Britain’s specialist “high street” retailers have been dropping like flies over the past year or two as the market for store-bought CDs and DVDs falls through the floor, and if HMV can’t win the punters over with games then they’ll soon be following.
Man, the HMV at Oxford Street in London is going to be jumping this weekend! Not only do they get Ubisoft’s Jade Raymond showing off Assassin’s Creed on Saturday, but now Spider-Man himself is going to be showing up tomorrow to personally sign copies of Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. This is truly a big deal of course, because as the webhead is busy scrawling out his name for you people (To Dave, My Biggest Fan. Love, Peter P Spider-Man), god knows how many innocents are being mugged, raped, and murdered on the streets of New York City. Like my uncle always used to say, with great power comes great opportunities to travel abroad and write your name on stuff. The only drawback to the whole event? Having to actually buy a copy of Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. More »
Hell, sometimes even we get confused about the current status of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots for the Xbox 360 (no status at all), so far be it for us to scold some simple data entry clerk at UK retail giant HMV for posting a pre-order listing for the game during a bout of what the company labels as over enthusiasm. “In his enthusiasm, one of our online games team indicated that hmv.co.uk would start taking pre-orders for MGS4 on Xbox 360, when, in fact, he simply meant to ask customers if they wished to receive an alert in the event of this title one day coming out on this platform,” admitted the retailer to GamesIndustry.biz
. So it was all just a big mistake, though the difference between release dates for the PS3 (Apr. 18th 2008) and 360 (Sep. 26th 2008) piques my curiosity for just a tiny moment before it goes back to not caring either way at this point.
‘MGS4 for Xbox 360′ a mistake, admits HMV [GamesIndustry.biz] More »
Computer and Video Games is reporting that UK entertainment retail giant HMV is currently offering pre-orders for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns Of The Patriots. This might not seem so odd except for the fact that not only are they taking orders for the PS3 version, release dated on the site at April 18, 2008, but they also have a listing for an Xbox 360 version allegedly set to come out on Sept. 26, 2008. Pre-orders are being taken for this version as well despite the fact that we’ve been told numerous times that MGS 4 will absolutely, positively be remaining a PS3 exclusive. So, is this a case of someone with inside information leaking it out too soon in attempt to grab some euros, or just a major screw up on HMV’s part? If it’s the latter, they are going to have a lot of unhappy gamers on their hands as well as a slew of refunds to hand out. You can check the listing out for yourself here on HMV’s website.
HMV takes MGS4 360 pre-orders [CAG] [Thanks to everyone who sent this one in]
