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

The owner of Activision is rumoured to be preparing a move to grab in the region of $3bn from the cash rich” publisher. The Wall Street Journal reports that Vivendi will at a board meeting today discuss plans to extract” over $3bn from Activision, with which it merged in 2007. …

Manchester City has announced that it has renewed its deal with EA Sports to see the publisher remain in place as its official gaming partner. The three-year extension was announced today on Man City’s Hong Kong pre-season tour. It sees FIFA demo pods remain at the Etihad Stadium Family Stand …

Take-Two has renewed the trademark for Rockstar’s spy action game,Agent,suggesting that it may still be in development. Agent was first announced by Sony at its E3 2009 press conference as a game being developed by Rockstar North exclusively for PlayStation 3. In a press release following that announcement, Rockstar revealed …

A number of new devs have revealed the sales numbers for their Ouya games and the reaction can best be described as mixed. Organ Trail by studio The Men Who Wear Many Hats has according to creator Ryan Wiemeyer sold about half of what my low-end predictions were” Gamasutra reports. …

Both the Xbox One and PS4 are likely to be in short supply upon their release later this year, one US analyst has predicted. Colin Sebastian told GameSpot that the complexity” of coordinating such launches means that "it is more likely than not that there will be initial shortages". Added …

But new opportunities could arise for members of services industry, CEO predicts

Synthesis Germany exposes the reality of tackling multiple languages simultaneously with Dishonored

This year’s NASSCOM Game Developer Conference will take place in Pune on 15thand 16thNovember. The venue for this year’s conference is Pune’s JW Mariott hotel, and NASSCOM is currently accepting applications from interested speakers. Last year’s NGDC featured speakers such as EA founderTrip Hawkins, Sledgehammer Games CEOGlen Schofield, and indie …

Any attempt by the US government to use Xbox One’s Kinect camera to spy on the public would be resisted. That’s the message from Microsoft, which in a statement released to The Verge in response to privacy concerns about the new device said: "Absent a new law, we don’t believe …

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has set out his vision for a new Microsoft in an internal memo circulated amongst company staff. This company has always had a big vision — to help people realize their full potential,” he wrote. In the earliest days, it was by putting a PC on …