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

A Japanese earthquake and tsunami relief fund made available by Sony over the PlayStation Network has raised around $1.3m. Established last month, the campaign allowed anyone logging into PSN to donate a sum to charity from the PlayStation Store wallet. All the money raised has been given to the American …

Jeffrey Katzenberg joins board of directors at social games giant

UK entertainment retailer HMV has issued its third profit warning of the year so far. The chain warned, four weeks ahead of the end of the financial year, that annual profits before tax would now be around 30m. When it issued its second profit warning last month it predicted that …

A reshuffle at Dixons Retail has seen its Nintendo buyer promoted. Christopher Rogers has taken on the role of category manager for gaming, and is now responsible for titles across all formats. He will report into Home category Tony Puddefoot. Rogers has been working at the consumer electronics firm for …

Sony has stated that the manufacturing disruption caused by the fallout of last month’s earthquake and tsunami last month could force it to alter its NGP launch plans. This could include the delaying of the launch in some regions. Bloomberg quotes SCEA president Jack Treet as saying that the disaster …

Sergio Pimentel joins audio production house to head up new music supervision arm

Always quick to jump on any possible sales opportunity, the accessories sector has outdone itself once again by latching onto the 3DS dizziness debate. Online accessories retailer GamingZap is currently taking pre-orders on what is called the ‘Hed Saver’. Effectively it’s a cooling patch that sits on a user’s forehead …

Own an iPhone? Develop’s essential daily content can be read from the palm of your hand with the free Develop App. The app recently passed one thousand downloads and offers a raft of unique functions, including up-to-the-minute news direct from Develop-Online.net plus a completely customisable homepage and industry event listings. …

It might not have any games pencilled in for the launch of Sony’s PSP successor the NGP, but THQ has told MCV that it does plan to support the machine a little further down the line. "We do have plans, but we just haven’t announced anything yet," president and CEO …

What has been behind the decision to rebrand THQ?We laid out this strategy almost two and a half years ago. The whole idea was to have two business units, for core and family. On the core side of the business it was about fewer, bigger, but very high quality core …