Publishing

Ubisoft is in negotiations to buy three separate games firms for approximately €5 million each. And the French publisher was even keen on buying US studio Cryptic, which was this week purchased by Atari. Speaking at the UBS Annual Global Media Conference Ubisoft CFO Alain Martinez said: "We have about …

Gears of War 3 is set to arrive in time for Christmas 2010, claims US games magazine EGM. The information follows news that Gears of War 2 has sold through three million copies in just four weeks. According to the publication, the third game is set to include a ‘five …

Square Enix has announced the next entry in its long-running RPG series, Dragon Quest, will be released on Wii, and could be exclusive to the platform. The revelation was made at the publisher’s recent press conference where the series creator Yuji Horii confirmed Dragon Quest X will appear on Nintendo’s …

The open beta of PS3 Home will be made available to all PS3 users from tomorrow (December 11th), SCEE has announced. The open beta will include Ubisoft’s themed Far Cry 2 Home space, with additional spaces for Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, Warhawk, Motorstorm and SOCOM on the way shortly. Commercial partnerships …

A brand new virtual world targeting both Muslims and all those with an interest in learning more about the Muslim community has been launched by social network Muxlim. The virtual world, called Muxlim Pal, is visually similar in style to popular virtual hangout Habbo, and lets users customise the appearance …

Seemingly not satisfied with conquering the world’s living rooms with its music series Guitar Hero, Activision-Blizzard is to bring its franchise to arcades around the world – and the surprise is that Japanese rival Konami is on board with the project, MTV Multiplayer reports. Guitar Hero Arcade is based on …

Sony has announced it plans to cut 8,000 jobs from its electronics business, as well as shut ten per cent of its manufacturing plants. The company aims to generate cost savings of 100 billion yen ($1.1 billion) by March 2010, and follows the news that the Japanese economy has shrunk …

Gaming giant Sega has become the latest established player from the games market to make a move into the casual gaming sector with the launch of its new Flash games portal PlaySega. For the complete story, head over to MCV’s sister site CasualGaming.biz.

Spore has been illegally downloaded 1.7 million times since its release in early September, reportedly setting a new record to become the most pirated game ever. The figure was among several estimated by TorrentFreak, which reports Spore is the first game to come close to rivalling the number of illegal …

Konami has launched an ambiguous teaser site concerning its plans for the highly popular and lucrative Metal Gear Solid series – and many are seeing it as the strongest hint yet that PS3 hit Metal Gear Solid 4 could be on the way to Xbox 360. At present the new …