Whether this is due to the bad weather last week a general slowdown or

“Whether this is due to the bad weather last week, a general slowdown, or because of the position of Christmas on a Wednesday this year will become apparent next week.”. The data from FootFall Research showed that in the week beginning 9 December, there was a 3.8 per cent drop in visitor numbers compared with last year.”We are beginning to see the first signs of a slowdown,” the FootFall business development director, Ian Wilcock, said. New figures yesterday showed a fall in the number of people visiting shopping centres. Retailers are telling us that Christmas is off to a slow start ­ what do they expect if they hike prices like this?”However, this price pressure may start to abate as evidence of weak high street trading mounts.

Geoffrey Dicks, of RBS Financial Markets, said: “The main difference from our forecast came from clothing and footwear prices. Xbox has come down from £299 to £159 while GameCube has stayed at £129 but its sales have been hit.Asked whether the profits warning marked the end of the boom in computer games, Martin Long, Game’s finance director, said: “It is difficult to say at this moment in time. But two of the manufacturers have cut their prices twice this year PlayStation 2 has come down from £299 to £170. In the spring, it described the current period as “the golden age of gaming” as three new consoles battled it out for supremacy: Sony’s PlayStation 2, Microsoft’s Xbox and Nintendo’s GameCube. Game established itself and now the big players who don’t want to miss out, like Dixons and GUS [which owns Argos], have come in and eaten its lunch.”The meltdown in the market is in sharp contrast to the bullish stance taken by Game earlier this year.

Game, which is headed by John Steinbrecher and changed its name from Electronics Boutique in April, has been forced to follow suit, though as a specialist retailer the impact on its figures has been more significant.One analyst said: “Is there a place for Game Group anymore? The focus has always been on the hot [computer game] titles. Dixons followed on some of its games while Woolworths offered “bundled offers” which combined the consoles and games for a knock-down price. Previous market forecasts were for about £41m.Argos sparked the price war last week when it cut the price of all its PlayStation games from £39.99 to £29.99. It added that the weaker demand had led to “an unexpectedly high level of promotional activity as retailers attempt to stimulate demand”.Profits for the year to 31 January are now expected to be similar to last year’s £31.5m. The warning sparked fears that Christmas trading might be weaker than expected across the high street and dragged down shares in retailers as diverse as Next and Matalan.After days of a falling share price and newspaper reports of rival chains such as Argos and Dixons cutting £10 off the price of top new games, Game issued a statement saying “the levels of demand across the market for the Christmas period have been disappointing and like-for-like sales at Game in December are 4.7 per cent behind last year”. Woolworths shares fell 11 per cent, Dixons closed down 6 per cent and HMV finished 7 per cent lower. Iraq was reported to have requested an extra 120 switches as “spare parts” during the initial transaction.The delivery of the machines was approved by the European Commission and the UN because sanctions against Iraq do not apply to medical equipment.

However, each machine contains an electronic switch that can be used as a detonator in an atomic bomb, according to US experts. The machines, known as “lithotripters”, use ultrasound to destroy kidney stones in patients. It said that after the massacre America reduced its military co-operation with Iraq but German firms continued their activities until the Gulf War.Die Tageszeitung quoted sources close to the US Vice President, Dick Cheney, as saying the Bush administration was hoping to prove a German company was continuing to co-operate with the Iraqi regime over the supply of equipment allegedly useful in the construction of weapons of mass destruction.American weapons experts have recently voiced concern that the German Government has permitted Siemens to sell Baghdad at least eight sophisticated medical machines which contain devices that are vital for nuclear weapons. During the period to 1991, the German authoritiespermitted weapons co-operation with Iraq and in some cases “actively encouraged” it, according to the newspaper which cited German assistance allegedly given to Iraq for the development of poison gas used in the 1988 massacre of Kurds in northern Iraq. The UN claims that publishing the extent of the companies’ involvement in Iraq would jeopardise necessary co-operation with such firms.German involvement outstripped that of all the other countries put together, the paper said.