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

Kids TV giant Nickelodeon and Activision are going on tour to promote Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. The pan-European tour will be advertised on Nick’s TV and digital channels, and will make use of the firm’s Slime Truck to take the game across the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden and Spain. …

The other kids TV giant, Cartoon Network, has partnered with Xbox to market the arrival of its new hit TV show, The Amazing World of Gumball. The cartoon – which is developed in the UK – is already a smash hit in the US and is notable for combining 2D, …

Jetpack Joyride downloaded more than 350,000 times in a week

UK retailer GAME has revealed exactly what it has planned for its special Gears of War 3 midnight opening event at its London Oxford Street store next Monday night. Carlos Ferro, war veteran and the voice of Dom Santiago, will be in attendance to meet fans of the game. Limited …

Quirky Japanese games developer Grasshopper Manufacture has revealed the true identity of its Kinect title formerly known as Codename D – Diabolical Pitch. Eurogamer reports that the game combines the undead and baseball. Players will pitch the ball and swing the bat in an effort to dispose of zombies. Two …

Codemasters has announced that it is proposing to retire” its Guildford based development studio. The most recent game to come from the outfit was console and PC FPS Bodycount, which has proved to be both a critical and commercial flop. 66 people are employed by the studio, all of whom …

Some 70 staff affected; Publisher to focus on racing games after Bodycount dissapointment

We know that PS Vita is compatible with most digital PSP games, but Sony says it may also have a solution for those who own UMD versions of some titles. Destructoid reports that Sony says that they’re considering some kind of program to offer special download versions as replacements”. There …

Sony has announced two brand new colour variants of the PS3 that will be released in Japan later this year. The Splash Blue and Scarlet Red models will be released in Japan on November 17th priced at 29,980 (around 240). There’s no hint yet of a release outside of Japan, …

You can already access Xbox Live on a Windows Phone 7 handsets, and from next year consumers will also be able to access the network on their PC. Microsoft has confirmed that Xbox Live will be an integrated feature in Windows 8. This means XBL will be in-built into a …