Rob Fahey (Page 154)

A major shake-up in the videogame magazine publishing market is on the way, with Highbury House set to purchase Paragon Publishing in a move which will create one of the UK's largest consumer magazine publishers.

More information about the rather publicity-shy Phantom console has been unveiled, revealing that the system is indeed a Windows PC designed to download PC games securely over a broadband connection.

In its first major business strategy conference since the company was formed out of a merger earlier this year, Square Enix has announced ambitious plans to double its sales within a timescale of three to four years.

A late 2005 launch date for the PlayStation 3 looks increasingly likely today, with confirmation from Elpida that it will be beginning production of memory chips for the console early that year.

Japanese software and hardware sales figures for the first half of the year have been released today, showing Nintendo still leading the pack in terms of software sales despite a strong challenge from Square Enix.

Magazine publisher Future Network has issued a trading update for the first five months of 2003, showing continued growth in most aspects of the company's business both in the UK and abroad.

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.