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

Microsoft has discontinued production of its Inside Xbox programmes in the United States. First-party on-console shows such as Major’s Minute, Featured Videos and Insider Moves will no longer be available in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, according to Xbox’s Larry "Major Nelson" Hyrb. "We want to express our …

The UK’s biggest celebration of video games is back. London Games Festival will return in 2012 after a 2011 hiatus. It will be a month-long affair, running between September 27th and October 28th – not timed to coincide with the Olympics, as had originally been planned. The festival will encompass …

We take a peek under the hood of the tech outfit's PS3 toolset Offload

Publishing giant embraces new version of DI3D human face and body capture solution for FIFA games

Classic ‘80s disco, power ballads and soft rock will return to Wii this Christmas courtesy of Nordic Games. The publisher is readying the ninth game in its hit We Sing series for October. We Sing ‘80s will feature 30 of the decade’s most popular tracks, complete with the usual party …

Cave shooter Akai Katana will be released in the UK on May 11th, publisher Rising Star has confirmed to MCV. The game is an Xbox 360 exclusive and marks the first official release of the Akai Katana series in the UK. Following the fine work it did with previous Cave …

I’ve said?this here before, but people sometimes accuse MCV of being overly negative about the trade. No one likes bad news. But who are we to ignore a collapsing market? Still, doubters may still see today’s warning from Zynga, the great nemesis of the console, as salt in a wound …

Renowned pre-owned games guru Martin Baxter has joined Green Man Gaming as head of trading. Baxter joins following four years at HMV, most recently as category manager for games. He introduced its RePlay pre-owned range. Previously he has held senior roles at Choices and Gamestation. At GMG he will work …

Forget the recession: our depressed retail market is thanks to pressure from free apps and mobile games. That’s according to one of the US’ most influential games execs, John Schappert, who just a year ago was a key figure at EA. He also once ran Xbox Live – but has …

Cable TV and internet specialist Virgin Media has become the first UK ISP to block The Pirate Bay from its broadband users. Virgin media has received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement,” a notice reads …