By: Chella Ramanan
GiN European Correspondent
Nintendo's UK office will be dusting off the mantle piece this morning to make room for four new trophies. Last night, Nintendo swept the boards at the MCV Industry Excellence Awards, which took place at the Brewery, London. The MCV Industry Excellence Awards, founded by MCV, the UK's leading trade games publication, are voted for by a panel of 90 industry judges.
With three individual awards and one joint accolade to its name, Nintendo was the clear winner, scooping the Games Publisher and Marketing Team awards, as well making it as a finalist in nearly every other relevant category.
Other winners included Activision's Guitar Hero as New Games Brand, GAME as Specialist Retailer and Blizzard Entertainment as Unsung Hero. Travellers Tales were crowned best UK Development Team with Microsoft winning best marketing campaign with Gears of War.
In addition, Nintendo was awarded the special Grand Prix Award for being the company felt by MCV to have contributed the most to the business over the previous 12 months. This awards evening is the cherry on the cake for Nintendo as the Wii continues to outsell PS3 and Xbox 360 and follows news of a bumper Easter break for the console in the UK with 25,000 units sold.
MCV Industry Excellence Awards 2007 Winners in full:
RETAIL
Independent Retailer, Winner: e-Play –
Finalists: Chips, Grainger Games, Playtime Multimedia, Ninja Games
Entertainment Retailer, Winner: HMV – Finalists: Woolworths, Virgin, Asda, Tesco
Specialist Games Retailer, Winner: GAME – Finalists: Chips, Gamestation, Gamestop, CEX
Online Retailer, Winner: Play – Finalists: Amazon, GAME, Gameseek, Shopto.com
Star Store (in association with field marketing agency Channel Advantage, commissioned by MCV), Winner: Gamestation (Birmingham New Street) – Finalists: Playtime Multimedia (Doncaster), Chips (Orpington), GAME (Braehead, Glasgow), HMV (Oxford Street, London)
Special Recognition Award (voted for by the MCV Retail Advisory Board),
Margaret Pearson – Centersoft
PEOPLE & INDUSTRY
UK Development Team,
Winner: Travellers Tales – Finalists: Real Time Worlds, Evolution Studios, Rare, Rockstar Leeds
Distribution Team, Winner: Koch/Nindie -Finalists: Gem, Centresoft, Just, EUK
Unsung Hero, Winner: Blizzard Entertainment –
Finalists: Capcom, Square Enix, Mastertronic/Blast, Koch/Nindie.com
Sales Team, Winner: THQ – Finalists: Nintendo/Koch, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, Microsoft/Gem
Games Publisher , Winner: Nintendo – Finalists: Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, Sega, THQ
PR & MARKETING
PR Team, Winner: Nintendo/Cake –
Finalists: Microsoft/Red/Edelman, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts/Shine Communications, Sega/Kazoo
New Games Brand, Winner: Guitar Hero (Activision)
Finalists: Brain Training (Nintendo), Gears of War (Microsoft), Just Cause (Eidos), Dead Rising (Capcom)
Trade Marketing Team, Winner: Ubisoft –
Finalists: Sony Computer Entertainment, Vivendi Universal Games, Nintendo, Sega
Marketing Team, Winner: Nintendo – Finalists: Microsoft, Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, THQ
Game Campaign, Winner: Gears of War (Microsoft) – Finalists: Wii Sports (Nintendo), Brain Training (Nintendo), FIFA 07 (Electronic Arts), Pro Evo 6 (Konami)
Grand Prix Award – Nintendo