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

Six years after it was first announced, rumours are rife that Square Enix has cancelled Final Fantasy Versus XIII. Kotaku claims to have word of the cancellation from several sources”, saying it was announced internally within the last few weeks. In the weeks leading up to the decision Square is …

They say it’s software that sells a console – so news of some exclusive game content for Ouya will give the upstart a huge boost. Former Call of Duty dev Robert Bowling has announced that Ouya will be exclusive platform for episodic content relating to his upcoming next-gen title Human …

Vivendi’s failure to court interest in Activision could lead the way to a dramatic new outcome – an MBO spearheaded by boss Bobby Kotick. Activision has hired JP Morgan to advise on a possible buyout of Vivendi’s 60 per cent stake. The group would need to raise in the region …

Ubisoft has reported a significant increase in earnings for the past quarter, thanks in large part to the sales of Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. The company announced a 27 per cent increase in earnings for Q1 of its current fiscal year ending June 30th, 2012. Revenue for Ubisoft during the …

EA, Zynga, and Microsoft, along with a host of other companies, have banded together against the Defense of Marriage act. The three gaming entities joined many other US companies in signing an official document stating their opposition. The 1996 federal law defines marriage as being between one man and one …

Jagex’s long-running, massively popular MMO RuneScape is perhaps even more popular than we thought. The developer has announced their free-to-play MMO now boasts over 200m registered users from more than 150 countries since its launch in 2001. In that time users have logged some seven billion hours of playing time. …

Micosoft has announced fiscal results regarding the fiscal quarter ending June 30th, 2012. Although the company brought in a record of $18.06bn in revenue (compared to $17.37bn for the same quarter in 2011), it posted a net loss of $492m due to a ‘goodwill impairment charge’ of $6.2bn. The charge …

Industry giants campaigning against Federal law preventing same-sex marriage

Publisher sets up three-year initiative to support multi-platform development

Online sales jump by 127 per cent to offset falling retail revenues