Game industry business news

Phil Spencer’s repetitive insistence that Xbox remains ‘committed to first party’ seems to be falling on deaf ears. Because, as some of the firm’s more vocal critics will tell you, what Microsoft says and what Microsoft does are often very different. It’s just announced the intention to close two internal …

New dev headed up by Wooga veteran Wilhelm Oesterberg, first title is mobile strategy game Warlords

Any lingering questions about Elite Dangerous’ support for Oculus Rift have been answered. The space sim has been named as an official launch title for the headset. Furthermore, as well as supporting cross-platform play for the VR, PC and console versions, existing owners will get the VR version for free. …

A New York advert has seemingly revealed the name of the next Hearthstone expansion. As spotted by a Reddit user, an in-progress mural painting in Brooklyn carries the name ‘Whispers of the Gods’. Blizzard has already said that it will detail the next big step for the game tomorrow (March …

Steam’s current surprise hit is on the cusp of a big sales milestone. PC Gamer reports that Stardew Valley has to date sold around 425k copies. That’s in just 12 days since its launch at the end of February. The game, which has been likened to Harvest Moon, came out …

The physical version of Square Enix’s new Hitman won’t be released until next year. The boxed release had been due out before the end of the year, but the publisher has told Videogamer that it has been delayed – although the reason has not been specified. Hitman is released digitally …

Intel Developer Blog: Prevent observation and reverse-engineering for binaries of your code using the Tamper Protection Toolkit

Puzzler Media is to publish a monthly Candy Crush magazine. It won’t tell the tale of… erm… god what happens in that game? Matching things in threes? It isn’t about all of whatever that is, anyway. It’s a puzzle compilation, with King’s branding, that costs 2.99. Puzzler is somewhat of …

Nintendo’s in-development console Zelda title will reinvent the series in much the same way Ocarina of Time did. That’s according to series producer Eiji Aonuma, who has told Famitsu – as reported by Kotaku – that development is ticking along nicely. The game has really taken shape, and things have …

Award-winning PR specialists will be speaking at Interface this May to help indie developers get their games in front of the world. Caroline Miller (owner of MCV award-winning Indigo Pearl), Lauren Dillon (account director at Premier PR’s games division), Stefano Petrullo (former Ubisoft PR boss turned owner of his own …