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

Sony has finally confirmed that its PlayStation Vita handheld console will be region free, according to the president of Sony Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida. The news is all the bigger, of course, as Nintendo decided to region lock the 3DS – the first time it has ever locked one of …

Online retail’s tendency to ship games early has irked its High Street rivals for years, but a new trick from GameStop hopes to protect the seller from accusations of early selling. It appears that GameStop.co.uk has already shipped some copies of Gears of War 3, with some customers receiving the …

UK supermarket chain Morrisons has hit the magic 25 price point for tomorrow’s big global release Gears of War 3. Supermarket promotions are no rarity on big titles, but prices can vary – and 25 is typically the cheapest you’ll find on any triple-A big release on day one. But …

PC digital distribution service Desura has launched Alphafunding, a crowdsourcing mechanism for funding indie game development projects. Alphafunding looks to formalise the process of supporting games which are in their early development phases by allowing people to become ongoing beta and alpha testers of games they support for the cost …

Drew Taylor has launched issue #0 of JumpButton, a new Australian magazine which focuses on the art and substance of videogame culture. JumpButton originally released in Australia several years ago for a brief run, but has been reborn with a new 64-page launch issue using MagCloud, a service which prints …

Though around 20 per cent have been deleted, says analytics firm

Retailer GAME has confirmed that it will host a second GAMEfest in 2012. It estimates that 30,000 gamers will attend the event at the Birmingham NEC, which opened its doors today and will run until Sunday. Partners for this year’s gathering include Nintendo, Sony, Microsoft, EA and Activision. The most …

In a new series of interviews, MCV grills all the major players in the localisation sector, kicking off with Universally Speaking’s MD Vickie Peggs. What are your thoughts on the relationship between publishers and QA firms? What works well and what needs improving? We find publishers come to us from …

In MCV’s latest rundown of the industry’s hottest vacancies and biggest personnel news, Activision reveals its new-look PR team, Disney’s Manab Roy takes on a new role and Iceberg hires a new PR manager. ACTIVISION RESHUFFLES EURO AND UK PR TEAMS Three new hires and a promotion have reshaped the …

Few video game franchises can fill an aircraft hanger with thousands of fans on their own, let alone draw the attentions of the world’s mainstream media or entice superstar Kanye West to give a private performance. But Call of Duty can, and did without breaking a sweat. For a brand …