It's all back-slapping on the cover of trade paper MCV (The Market for Home Computing and Video Games) this week as it announced the major winners of the MCV-sponsored InDin awards. The InDin is an annual charity bash for the games industry - "In" meaning Industry, and "Din" simply meaning dinner. Electronics Boutique was named MCV Retailer Of The Year, and Gem were MCV Distributor Of The Year. Elsewhere MCV reports that Hasbro have shed a couple of development houses in order to concentrate on mainstream games rather than niche markets such as flight sims.

The other trade paper serving the computer games industry CTW (The Entertainment Computer Trade Weekly) also gives prominence to the Hasbro story. It also points out that Sega Europe's boss, JF Cecillon, reckons sales of Dreamcast hardware are some six months ahead of schedule. CTW also says that its development contacts have told it that next January's big Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas could well be the venue in which Microsoft's X-Box gets its first public unveiling. The CES has been the launch platform for such standards as VCR, CD and DVD in the past so it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility.