Beckham bait for computer games consumers

While demand for business software has waned, popular characters and the introduction of new high-tech machines are to revive the computer games market for developers in the UK.

The global games industry has endured a sharp decline in demand over the past two years as consumers have waited for the launch of Sony's Playstation 2 - introduced last year - Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo's GameCube, set to hit the market later this year.

Demand for games software often slows before the introduction of new consoles and picks up after they have been released.

Industry experts say the computer games industry is driven by technology upgrades, with consumers tending to defer the purchase of new games titles until the launch of a new console.

With a lot of games unsold, developers are cash strapped, so the appeal of popular characters is seen as a way of guaranteeing immediate success.

Games maker Rage Software attempted to revive its fortunes by developing games on England football captain David Beckham, and movie icon Rocky.

In addition, Rage's arch-rival Eidos is enjoying a re-emergence in sales of its Tomb Raider games through the success of the recently-released Hollywood film of the same name. The company raised its revenues to £51.7m in July.

Smaller games developer SCi Entertainment said it plans to release a game called The Italian Job - based on the movie of the same name - and an advanced version of Thunderbird, based on the children's TV show, before Christmas.