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

The long-rumoured Steam Box has finally been revealed at CES in LA. Developed by the Utah-based Xi3, the hardware – currently going under the codename of ‘Piston’ – is designed specifically for use with Steam’s TV-friendly Big Picture mode. Xi3 has confirmed that it has received investment from Valve. The …

Social games studio Majesco Boston has closed down, at least according to a former employee. GI.biz reports that the developer’s former senior producer Chris Pasley claimed as much in a Facebook update. I enjoyed my time at Majesco,” Pasley said. I hate that it ended so abruptly with the whole …

Mojang has revealed the latest milestone for its multi-platform hit Minecraft, announcing that the Xbox 360 Edition has reached 5m sales. Mojang’s Daniel Kaplan shared the info on Twitter, adding that the number was reached on the final day of 2012. The word comes just days after the company announced …

Ten day competition to be judged by Phil Fish, Ed Fries, Adam Saltsman, Zach Gage, Felicia Day and others

Another Humble Bundle has come and gone, and once again the promotion has delivered some big numbers. Humble Indie Bundle 7 ended up earning $2,650,204.55 during its limited availability, moving 395,917 bundles in the process. The funds will be split between the bundle’s developers, charity, and the Humble Bundle group …

French studio behind Risen, Grey Matter and numerous ports in trouble

EA a 'potential buyer' of certain games having completed site visits

Creditors of bankrupt publisher THQ have won their fight to block the company’s sale to Clearwater Capital. MCV reported earlier today that creditors were unhappy with the pre-pack agreement in place with Clearwater because it prevented other parties entering the bidding process and potentially robbed them of maximum returns. Now …

Apple’s App Store has hit 40 billion downloads, less than a year afterreaching 25bn downloads back in March.The announcement follows Flurry’s study that showed1.76bn Android and iOS apps were downloaded in the last week of 2012. Apple certainly had a bumper December as the App Store reached 2bn downloads during …

Sony to 'show off pre-release hardware ahead of an expected 2014 launch'