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

The 3DS XL is being dropped in Japan before its successor has even been released in the West. Siliconera reports that Nintendo’s Japanese 3DS XL page lists all seven colour variants of the model as ending production soon”, presumably with an eye to the New 3DS XL becoming the go-to …

The MCV Awards have been upgraded for next year, with new categories and recognition for individuals’ efforts. New awards this year include nods for Buying Team, Digital Marketing Team, Agency Team, and Indie Games Label – alongside hotly-contended core awards including Games Retailer, New Games Brand, and Game Campaign. Plus, …

Offers on games and consoles during last week’s Black Friday sales have seen a number of titles shoot back up the UK retail chart. According to the latest Ukie Games Charts, compiled by GfK Chart-Track, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare saw its sales more than double, rising 110 per cent. …

John Broomhall pauses to reflect on how game audio has progressed over the years

Microsoft’s Xbox One was the big winner in the US throughout last Friday’s Black Friday sales, a brand agency claims. InfoScout reckons that Xbox One accounted for 62 per cent of games console hardware sales throughout the key shopping day. The news wasn’t all bad for PS4, however, whose 31 …

Steam’s latest weekly top ten sellers chart is littered with games on special as part of Valve’s Autumn Sale. While past chart-toppers Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and Civilization: Beyond Earth jumped back into first and second respectively, last week’s winner Far Cry 4 only fell two spots among the promotional chaos. …

A mobile edition of 1999 Windows PC release The Longest Journey is now available on iOS devices. The Apple App Store lists The Longest Journey: Remastered for $8.99 – with the game requiring iOS 7.0 or later, and compatible with iPhone, iPad and iPod touch hardware. The page also notes …

Upcoming space sim and undisputed crowdfunding champion of the world Star Citizen has surpassed $65m in total funds received, thanks in part to developer Cloud Imperium’s promise of in-game pets. In a post on the Star Citizen’s official site, creator Chris Roberts revealed that the dev team would implement cats, …

The first instalment in Razer’s three-part eSports documentary has hit the web. Episode one of ‘Team Razer: Great Games’ looks at the beginnings of contemporary eSports, focusing on the formative effect of Blizzard’s seminal real-time strategy game StarCraft: Brood War and widely-known eSports competitors such as Jaedong and Flash, before …

The troubles experienced by Assassin’s Creed: Unity shouldn’t make gamers nervous about next week’s release of The Crew. That’s according to The Crew’s lead game designer Serkan Hasan told The Metropolist that he has total confidence in the stability of the game and its performance”, adding that the team have …