A football computer game based on England and Manchester United star David Beckham has been behind a big increase in turnover at Rage Software.

The game generated revenues of �4.2m over the 12 months to 30 June, which helped Rage's turnover jump to �12.2m compared with �5.7m last year.

Pre-tax losses were cut from �17.1m in 2001 to �16.1m.

Rage said it was looking forward to bumper trading over the coming Christmas period, through sales of the Beckham game and a new game based on the Rocky films.

Pre-orders of the Rocky game are now forecast to be about 650,000, which is about 150,000 more than originally expected.

Rage has also signed up former SAS soldier and now writer Andy McNab to develop a military action game.

"Our industry is expecting its biggest ever trading period," said chairman John Roberts.

"The current financial year will see 12 of our products released on Sony PlayStation2, Microsoft's Xbox or Nintendo's GameCube."

And Rage said it was "in a better position than ever to return to profitability in the short term".