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

Giant Japanese social and mobile gaming network makes opening play on Western markets

Year-on-year numbers up 96% across January and February; Free directory listing on offer

Home Retail Group has revealed that its Argos chain suffered an 8.5 per cent decline in like-for-like sales for the eight weeks ending March 3rd. Overall sales fell 7.7 per cent to 480m. The numbers were apparently driven by the continued weakness in the consumer electronics market”. 12 stores were …

The rumoured NeoGeo portable is real and will launch in Q2 2012. UPDATED: New picture and revised game list. Video game accessories and retro console specialist Blaze has struck a deal with Japan’s SNK Playmore and US distributor Tommo to bring the NeoGeo X handheld console to market. It will …

Days before walking away from both Microsoft and his own studio Lionhead last week, Peter Molyneux admitted that the public were too quick to judge Microsoft’s Xbox 360 Kinect technology. It’s just like any piece of new technology or invention, whether it’s a bike, a motorcar, or a flying machine. …

Blizzard Entertainment has confirmed that the hotly anticipated Diablo III will be released on PC and Mac on May 15th. The game will be released simultaneously across the globe and can be purchased either from retail or directly from Blizzard’s Battle.net website. Alongside the English language version the game will …

The latest Transformers cartoon series is to receive an accompanying video game from Activision. Transformers Prime will be released for Wii, 3DS and DS at some point later this year”. The associated cartoon series first hit US screens last year and debuted in the UK on Cartoon Network last month. …

Publishing contract for alleged Xbox 720 game 'fell through'

OpCapita, the company that has tabled an offer to pay off GAME’s lenders, has put 1,000 Comet staff on notice of losing their jobs. That represents about 30 per cent of the workforce, The Sun reports. OpCapita has already cut 450 engineer positions and put hundreds” of call centre staff …

Downsized California studio Obsidian lost out on bonus pay for the RPG Fallout New Vegas because its Metacritic score was one point below the threshold, a developer at the studio has claimed. Publisher Bethesda was not permitted to pay additional royalties for the RPG because it scored 84 on Metacritic, …