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

Xbox One and Xbox 360 were reportedly the top selling consoles at Target and Walmart during Black Friday, accounting for 61 per cent of hardware sales between the two retailers. The figure comes from an InfoScout report spotted by Polygon, which notes that hard sales figures weren’t provided by the …

Steam saw record numbers for concurrent users this past weekend, at one point boasting more than 7m accounts online simultaneously. VG247 reports that Valve’s digital platform surpassed the milestone yesterday morning, peaking at 7,190,578 concurrent users. Valve’s Dota 2 drew a peak of 542,906 concurrent users, making it far and …

Skyrim leads a pack of past top sellers on this week’s Steam sales chart, with the majority carrying significant discounts thanks to Valve’s Autumn Sale. Skyrim’s Legendary Edition took first, while the standard version grabbed the fourth spot. Bioshock Infinite finished in the runner-up spot ahead of Counter-Strike: Global Offensive …

In this week’s issue of MCV, we talk to Microsoft’s corporate VP Phil Harrison about the launch of the Xbox One and what lies ahead in the next-gen. We also bid farewell to the now previous generation of consoles and take a look at some of the biggest event, scandals …

Shin Megami Tensei studio given free reign with publisher's back catalogue after $140m acquisition

Any gamers unlucky enough to find themselves with a faulty PS4 should see a replacement arrive pretty quickly. That’s because Sony is keeping a small number of units in reserve that will be used for those who need an exchange. Not that the company expects many problems – it reckons …

Now this is… awkward. As part of the promotional campaign ahead of tomorrow’s Channel 4 special How Video Games Changed The World, Charlie Brooker visited the Channel 4 news studio to discuss games with Jon Snow. Unfortunately, there is no human being in the world who knows less about video …

Applifier's Oscar Clark discusses why more developers should empower players to express themselves rather than dictate every gaming moment

HMV is reducing the amount of high-end technology it sells, the retailer has told MCV’s sister site PCR. HMV director Steve West revealed that the firm has cut back on selling items such as tablets to make way for products which our customers more readily associate with the HMV brand” …

Develop speaks to Umbra about its occlusion culling tool and how its giving PS4 and Xbox One games that next-gen sheen