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

Former Valve designer and the co-creator of Portal Kim Swift has had her new game signed up by publisher Square Enix. The game itself has not been revealed, though more details about the "incredibly fascinating and quirky" title are expected to be released this weekend, Eurogamer reports. What is known …

Sega has announced that it has begun work on a fifth instalment in the Virtua Fighter series. The game has previously been released at retail but is to get a second release, this time only on Xbox Live Arcade and the PlayStation Network. 19 characters will be included, as well …

After a turbulent year to date, retailer HMV has announced that it is to fast-forward” its efforts to increase its presence in the technology market. Its new range and displays are being rolled out as quickly as possible to 150 of the chain’s UK and Ireland stores following a successful …

See how the mobile phone can ‘wave, speak, scan or photograph’ to discover content – and explore the ramifications for publishers and content providers at the ME-hosted conference. ‘Monetising Mobile: Next Gen Search and Discovery‘ takes place on Wednesday September 28th at the Soho Hotel in central London. There’s a …

Newly-released tech breaks download records

It’s never had the credit it deserved for its success, but Sony has nonetheless decided to revisit its PlayStation Home concept with a brand new redesign. Having lost much of its user base to the rising online social games sector, Sony has said that it now intends to relaunch Home …

And 25 per cent of Sodium players are spending money on virtual goods, Sony chief says

Pinches of salt at the ready. French site 01net, which has a mixed history of reliability in these matters, has claimed that Nintendo is working on a shock early redesign for its 3DS handheld. It claims that the company will in 2012 launch a brand new version of the machine …

Luke Reilly, editor and mainstay of Australian Official Playstation Magazine for 8 years, jumped ship to yesterday become the games editor at IGN Australia. Reilly told MCV: "It’s with much sadness I leave a magazine I’ve been some part of since late 2003. It’s actually over 90 issues, from freelancer …

You have to wonder why it bothered in the first place. Having once seemingly learnt its lesson regarding the DRM it implements on its PC games, for reasons unbeknown to anyone other than itself Ubisoft decided to re-enter the battleground by including always-on” DRM in recent release From Dust. And …