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

Fruit Ninja, the highly successful iOS game from Brisbane developers Halfbrick, is out today for Kinect, and is the first ever downloadable Kinect title. Phil Larsen, chief marketing officer at Halfbrick, told MCV: "We want to make sure that Fruit Ninja games are simple, fun to play and have intuitive …

With THQ Studio Australia in Brisbane is closing its doors, SEGA Studios Australia is now looking at avenues for providing opportunities for former THQ staff. Currently, a position is available for a studio Art Director and a Senior Engine Programmer at the Brisbane-based studio, but SEGA Studios Australia has confirmed …

THQ has shut the doors to two of its Australian studios this week, as well as a development team in Phoenix totalling 200 employees gone. The two Australian studios to close their doors are THQ Studio Australia in Brisbane, which closes today, and BlueTongue Entertainment in Melbourne, which will go …

The PlayStation Store starts selling the HD remakes of Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell tomorrow – over a month before they arrive on disc at retail. Splinter Cell HD Trilogy is a current-gen remake of the first three stealth games – the original, plus Pandora Tomorrow and Chaos Theory – with 3D …

Analysts are debating whether turmoil across the financial markets will damage Zynga’s bid to go public. The social gaming giant, which has routinely won praise as a worthwhile investment, now faces a market gripped by anxiety. Any company with an IPO planned for this week will probably pull it,” Dow …

Game IP and other remaining assets owned by Sydney studio Team Bondi has been sold off, a source close to the matter has told Develop. Develop understands the goods have been transferred to Kennedy Miller Mitchell (KMM) – a Sydney production studio that works across a range of media, including …

Sony has announced another disc-based release in the PS3 SingStar series – Back to the ‘80s. Out in time for Christmas, the disc will include 30 tracks, though the playlist has not yet been revealed. Boxed releases in the SIngStar series on PS3 include Volume 2, Volume 3, ABBA, Queen, …

Investment-rich group believes it can afford four simultaneous third-party projects

Microsoft’s upcoming racer Forza 4 is now the official racing game partner of the Le Mans series. That’s following an agreement between developer Turn 10 and the America Le Mans Series, Destructoid reports. For the game itself this means that all the official cars and tracks from the racing series …

Nintendo has announced that a fresh agreement with Wi-Fi provider The Cloud will grant free access to 3DS owners. Similar to the deal brokered for DS owners, users of the machine will be able to access the internet and online functions for free from any of the network’s 5,000 hotspots. …