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By Gavin Stamp

Future Publishing has broken new ground by producing a PC gaming title for the pre-teen male market.

Planet PC will debut on December 1 with a £2.95 cover price and a 50,000 print run.

The monthly title will be aimed at eight-to-12-year-olds. It is designed to provide a safe and entertaining forum for children to explore the latest games releases as well as encouraging them to seek out homework related sites.

Planet PC will carry covermounted software every month and is backed by a £50,000 marketing budget. Future hopes it will act as a feeder for PC Format, its monthly PC leisure title.

Advertising will be sold by a team working across Future’s youth games titles, PlayStation Max and Nintendo World.

“Planet PC has already received an enormous amount of industry support in terms of advertising,” publisher James Binns explained.

“The current magazine market offers a read that is too old and,

at £5 a shot, too expensive for this younger market. Planet PC will fill this gap.”

Future is also launching a portable technology magazine and is redesigning its market-leading gaming title Official PlayStation Magazine. Mobile Computer User launched yesterday (October 28) with an expected settledown circulation of 20,000.

A new-look Official PlayStation Magazine was also unveiled yesterday with greater use of colour and a four-page-section analysing the latest home entertainment technology.

Editor Mike Goldsmith said the changes were designed to broaden the title’s appeal to new consumers entering the gaming market this Christmas and were not prompted by the glut of launches around Sega’s Dreamcast.

“The design has been on the cards for two to three months,” he said. “It is a mixture of being very accessible and keeping the good clobber for the enthusiasts.”