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

Halo’s AI sidekick to be Microsoft’s answer to Siri

Electronics and games retailer RadioShack has announced significant US store closures. The news follows a 20 per cent sales decline in the last quarter and the company’s eighth straight quarterly loss. Net losses tripled in the period to $191.4m. The closures equate to around 1,100 stores (20 per cent of …

Coffee Stain Studios’ deliciously bizarre Goat Simulator has now got a release date. The game will be released on April 1st – and yes, we realise that’s April Fools’ Day. The PC-only game will offer Steam Workshop support so players can make their own goats, missions, levels and more” although …

Rocksteady Studios will return to the helm of the Batman series this year with the release of Batman: Arkham Knight. Arkham Knight will be series creator Rocksteady’s final Arkham title, and the iconic Batmobile will be at the core of the new game, including Riddler’s challengers. The game will take …

New SDK allows users to broadcast and capture footage from smartphone titles

Twitch has revealed its software development kit for mobile game broadcasting. The SDK allows the capture of footage and audio from both the game and the devices camera and microphone. Furthermore, videos can be uploaded straight away at a variety of qualities. It seems that this kit is more for …

Three indie games have signed digital publishing deals with Namco Bandai Europe. The first is team-based space combat simulator GoD Factory: Wingmen from Nine Dots Studio, which will be released on PC, Mac and Linux. Then there’s Magiko Soft’s retro outing Platformines. That will be released for PC on Steam …

Rocket Rainbow’s puzzle game Hay Ewe is the first third-party mobile title to be published

Activision is taking the unprecedented step of allowing free multiplayer Call of Duty access to those who don’t own the game. Starting this Friday (March 7th) and running until Monday (March 10th) a free demo of Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer will be available on Xbox Live to all Xbox …

The games console hardware market enjoyed a sharp year-on-year increase in Japan thanks to the launch of PS4, Famitsu has revealed. Data supplied to MCV shows that for February hardware sales were up 179.1 per cent year-on-year at 189.5m (1.11m). The software market climbed 113.8 per cent to 192.5m (1.12m). …