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

Despite not being due to hit retail until September 20th, an early build of Xbox 360 shooter Gears of War 3 has appeared for download on the internet. Microsoft has obviously said that it’s on the case with tracking the source down, but in the mean time it has claimed …

PS3 platform holder Sony has extended its Welcome Back offer for PS3 owners. The scheme was designed to compensate customers for the widely publicised shut down of PSN and offered a host of free content – chief of which was free games for PS3 and PSP. However, many users reported …

The PSN crisis may be distant memory in the West, but it’s a different story in Japan where full restoration has finally been confirmed for this Wednesday (July 6th). Though most PSN services were restored in the country around the same time they were reactivated in the West, the Japanese …

It’s the silent success story of modern gaming. It’s growing. It’s bigger than you realise and it becomes more influential every day. And it believes video games should be free. That’s the realisation that could well this morning be hitting the industry’s top level execs right in the face following …

It has been a tough year for the games industry, but not for Take-Two. Why do you think that is?Fiscal year 2011 was a terrific 12 months for Take-Two. We generated substantial revenue growth and earnings. Our strategy is to produce a select number of triple-A titles and support them …

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Casual games giant makes first move towards stock flotation

Staff claim publisher probably always planned to close studio since last year's layoffs

Call of Duty and Assassin’s Creed may have proved that the annual release model can be a success outside of the sports genre, but analyst Michael Pachter has warned others about following the model. "We question the strategy of annual franchises for any game except sports simulations," he said in …

US analyst Michael Pachter believes that the PS Vita will achieve what the PSP did not and eat into Nintendo’s handheld market share. However, it’s not all good news – he also predicts that the overall portable games market will decline at the expense of smartphone gaming growth. "We continue …