The Budget - and the Games Industry

Amongst many other items, our coalition Government's emergency budget today announced the previously agreed (but not yet implemented) tax breaks for UK games companies will not now take place. See below the link to the BBC news item. ELSPA (which we are members of) had campaigned hard for this and it will be a blow for all the UK based games companies. The tax advantages for those based in North America, and some parts of Europe are far greater than here and that is just one of the reasons why Canada is such a popular choice as the hub for the games industry. The risk is obviously that the UK which has always been especially strong in this sector will lose a lot of it's creative talent overseas.

All of that said, the predicted growth for the games industry is still very positive news. A lot of this is in DLC (downloadable content) at CD Team Limited we continue to service this industry and help with USB delivery where some disc based solutions are in decline. The meeting I had today at a leading global games developer and publisher demonstrates how we continue to work in partnership with companies to transition from one delivery method to another. We welcome the opportunity to discuss DLC, in many cases there is a continued need for a physical format and security features for DLC and plug-ins at the pre-release and QA stages.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/10374867.stm

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Author: Jo Fone, Managing Director

Optical discs with 200x the capacity of Blu-ray!

Various reports have picked up recently on an article in which Japanese researchers describe their discovery of a metal oxide that could be used to create an optical data storage medium holding 200 times the amount of information stored on Blu-ray discs. The compound discovered by University of Tokyo professor Shinichi Okoshi and others. could, it is said, be produced in larger quantities and for a much cheaper price than alloys used in Blu-ray discs and DVD's. Results of the group's research were published in the May edition of the science journal 'Nature Chemistry'

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Author: Clive Wilkinson