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

Peripherals specialist Lazerbuilt has secured the rights to Sonic the Hedgehog. The firm will produce accessories for consoles and mobile devices.The range is due to arrive at retail this September. Lazerbuilt says it will not only target children aged between seven and 12 years old with Nintendo 3DS and DS …

PlayStation plus could be on the way to becoming a tiered membership service, if a new survey from Sony is anything to go by. IGN reports that the PS3 platform holder has circulated a questionnaire to PS+ members that asks if they’d be willing to pay different amounts for different …

Windows 7 OS, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player also banned; Xboxes may be recalled and destroyed

Nintendo boss defends plans to set price point of digital and retail boxed products at same level for Wii U

A patent dispute between Microsoft and Motorola has resulted in an injunction banning key Microsoft items from distribution in Germany – including Xbox 360. Also blocked from distribution in the country are Windows 7, Internet Explorer and Windows Media Player. The development follows news last week that the pair were …

Japanese social gaming giant Gree has acquired mobile game developer Funzio in a deal worth $210m. Funzio has developed a raft of popular free-to-play App Store titles like Modern War, Kingdom Age and Crime City, which have been downloaded over 20m times. Players can purchase extra in-game currency to progress …

Weekly userbase increases by 100,000 in just under a month

Think the big money is in paid-for apps? Think again – the real money is in in-game purchases. The latest figures from research firm Newzoo show that over 90 per cent of mobile game revenues in the US is generated by microtransactions, according to Gamasutra. That’s considerably higher than in …

Steam users can now initiate downloads and manage their games through a web browser or mobile device. A new Steam Beta client has gone live which, once installed, lets users download titles while they’re out which will become ready to play when they get home. Players have to make sure …

Treyarch shows off new texture technique 'reveal mapping' and confirms DX11 compatibility for PC