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

March istypically when big releases coming to stores. This year was no different with EA’s Titanfall and Sony’sInfamous: Second Son hitting shelves. Last month 64.5m was generated from software sales – 8.6 per cent less than last year. 2.1m units were sold in this time, a 19.9 per cent drop …

Epic founder says game budgets are tripling on PS4 and Xbox One

Zynga has lost nearly half of its daily active userbase and more than half of its monthly active users in the last year. Figures in the mobile and social gaming firm’s latest financial report show that the current number of daily active users is at 28m, up from 27 million …

Microsoft has confirmed that the upcoming Xbox One version of Minecraft will allow users to transfer their saves from Xbox 360. After months of teaming up with Mojang, we can confirm that Minecraft X360 Edition will save transfer to Xbox One Edition,” Xbox boss Phil Spencer said. More news soon.” …

But social firm halted player exodus during the last quarter

Nintendo’s marketing campaign for Mario Kart 8 will run until the end of the year, the firm says. It is already underway with a social media programme designed to get gamers nostalgic about classic Mario Kart moments. This will lead into a launch campaign, which includes online and TV activity …

A cheaper version of Skylanders featuring Batman, Superman, Power Rangers and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is coming to market. Toy giant Jakks Pacific will launch its Hero Portal range this August. The portals cost 40 for a starter pack, while toys come in packs of two for 6.99 – …

Microsoft CFO Amy Hood has told investors that there will be a "channel inventory drawdown for Xbox consoles". An inventory drawdown is the process of reducing the amount of available inventory of a product which, as Gamasutra points out, implies that Microsoft has produced more Xbox consoles than it is …

A look at how Marmalade's development arm made a suite of games for Hasbro

The PC games market has now surpassed the console gaming sector in terms of revenues, an analyst has claimed. DFC Intelligence owner David Cole told PCR: "On a global basis PC games have surpassed console games but the new console systems means consoles should show an increase. "The MOBA games …