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

As a rule, kebabs and iPhones shouldn’t generally mix. Dried chilli sauce on your touchscreen is never fun the morning after. However, developer Softgames is hoping for a more positive respnse to its new Kebab Manager game. That’s right: Kebab Manager. A game that encourages players to "raise your own …

Nintendo’s new console will not include a hard drive, will house 8GB of internal flash memory and offer a proprietary disc format capable of storing 25GB of information. Those are the claims being made by Kotaku this morning as the rumour mill surrounding the still mysterious Wii successor continues. The …

An all-encompassing shift to digital distribution would be a forwards step for the games industry, the boss of Finnish studio Remedy has declared. Remedy CEO Matias Myllyrinne believes a digital-only games ecosystem would help all in the industry, aside from one group he appears to have no sympathy for. The …

THQ has confirmed that it is to release Xbox 360 and PS3 compatible versions of its uDraw device. uDraw, which until now has only been available for the Nintendo Wii, has now sold a total of 1.7m units worldwide. The uDraw tablet has been a great success for THQ, selling …

Develop looks at the two turbulent weeks when Sonyâ??s online business fell into disarray

Washington-based casual games stronghold PopCap has made the surprise acquisition of social dev ZipZapPlay. PopCap has for years been considered a buyout target itself, though in recent months rumours have spread the Bejeweled company is seeking stock market floatation. The combined dev workforce has improved PopCap’s expectations for Facebook game …

THQ has reported losses of $136.1m for its 2011 financial year. This is significantly more than the $9m loss posted for fiscal 2010. Revenue was down year-on-year from $899.1m to $665.3m. The company’s Q4 was more successful, however, thanks to the release of Homefront. The shooter has now sold over …

Electronic Arts has announced plans to acquire Australian mobile games developer Firemint for an undisclosed sum, with the deal expected to close within the next four weeks. Firemint is one of the most well respected mobile developers, having originally made its name developing racing games and other titles on a …

Nintendo has effectively cut the price of its Wii console by 50 with the launch of a new bundle. The Mario Kart Wii pack will arrive in two weeks, on May 20th, with an estimated retail price of 129 – a big drop on the previous price of 179. At …

It’s one of the most prevalent trends of the current generation, and speaking to investors even the president of the world’s most powerful gaming firm has admitted that Nintendo must increasingly look towards the West if it wants to succeed in the modern games market. "There was an era in …