MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry

Microsoft has agreed a deal to hand an extensive set of toy licensing rights to Mattel. The pair already partner for products such as Halo Mega Bloks, but this new agreement will lead to a far wider range of merchandise, with a unified creative and design vision across the catalogue. …

Global sales of the PS4 may well be far ahead of Xbox One, but today’s Ubisoft financial report reveals that Microsoft users are spending more. VentureBeat reports that for every $1 spent by the average PS4 owner on Ubisoft products in Q3, Xbox One owners spent $1.25. This higher average …

Sales of digital points cards in stores rose slightly from 158m in 2014 to 160m last year. The main area of growth in this sector are cards bought for specific individual titles, which was valued at 27m in 2015. IHS estimates that over 1.224bn was spent on PC and console …

Character creation and animation tool out now, based on patented ‘face-fitting’ technology

Free as a bird and without a care in the world, liberated developer Hideo Kojima has launched his own YouTube channel. It’s called HideoTube. The first episode, perhaps unsurprisingly, looks at the Metal Gear Solid creator’s favourite 10 films of 2015. Also present is Kenji Yano, who has worked with …

The sales of PC hardware may be suffering worldwide, but not in terms of games. Data specialists GfK revealed that sales of PC gaming components and peripherals rose by 13 per cent in 2015. Overall, the PC games hardware market – which also includes graphics cards and headsets – generated …

Toys based on game licences are actually in growth, despite what the numbers suggest, NPD has said. The toy tracker’s latest data – which does not include toys-to-life – shows that 62.3m was made from game-inspired toys, an eight per cent dip. But this is entirely down to Moshi Monsters. …

The record $5.9bnbuy-outby Activision was just about the only positive number for King last year. The Candy Crush studio has revealed its latest financials, which show that annual profit for 2015 dropped by a tenth to land at $517 million. Meanwhile, revenues were down 12 per cent to $2 billion. …

British racing developer Codemasters has moved its Birmingham office to the middle of Digbeth’s Custard Factory Quarter. The Dirt, Grid and F1 creator will now occupy 9,000 square feet of space in the Birmingham district. The three-floor Custard Factory is currently undergoing a three-month renovation project to rejuvenate the 100-year-old …

Overall, platform exclusivity is not a good thing for gamers. It can be a good thing for platform holders, of course. In principle, it’s great for games to be as widely available to as many potential players as possible. Releasing across formats helps that. Of course, it comes with other …