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

After a long, long wait Rockstar’s LA Noire will be released in the UK tomorrow. And such is the anticipation that major retailers are today advertising a number of cut-price deals on the game. As rounded up by Frugal Gaming, Asda will sell the title for 34.97 and Morrison’s for …

The UK is losing ground internationally as retail struggles and slows, Sega has warned. Mike Hayes, the CEO of Sega’s Western publishing empire, this week revealed to MCV he was staggered” by how rapidly UK games retail is contracting. He said the UK is half as valuable to Sega as …

MAG and SOCOM studio sheds staff. SCE points to 'normal business practice'

Laura Fryer has made it to the top as general manager of Warner's Seattle studios. Develop catches up with her ahead of her Develop Conference keynote

Rovio’s world-dominating Angry Birds mobile IP has passed another huge milestone – 200 million total downloads across the world. The company’s marketing boss Peter Vesterbacka announced the news at the PaidContent Mobile conference in New York, while also saying that the latest Angry Birds Rio game has notched up 35 …

Following a fresh blow it its efforts to repair the PR damage done by the PSN implosion, Sony has now resolved an issue with its PSN password rest page. Yesterday it was reported that users were able to change the PSN passwords of anyone provided they had access to their …

Sony’s 3.61 firmware patch for PS3 – which was released as parts of its efforts to plug the gaps caused by the PSN breach – may be bricking older machines. That’s the claim of a customer services rep at developer Rockstar. The statement was made in reply to claims that …

Washington studio won't demonstrate new projects

Tecmo Koei’s first social game hits Facebook tomorrow. JollyWood is a new wildlife habitat-themed game that lets users create unique sanctuaries that can feature jacuzzi’s to amusement parks. The game is in development at Tecmo Koei’s Singapore studio, which has been tasked with building social games aimed at a global …

Microsoft has announced that Gears of War 3 has passed the 1m global pre-order mark. It’s the fastest title to manage the feat in Xbox 360 history. In addition, 1.29m people from 145 countries have taken part in the game’s Xbox Live beta, racking up 249 years worth of matches …