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

The UK digital video games market is bigger than the music and DVD market combined, says retail body ERA. The firm estimates the digital games market made 411m last year, followed by music at 280.7m and digital video at 77.4m. Digital now accounts for 14.6 per cent of the entertainment …

Sony Online Entertainment has closed down three of its studios and made sweeping redundancies across the company, according to unsubstantiated rumours. News site Kotaku claims the firm has closed studios in Seattle, Arizona and Denver. The website claimed that nearly one-third” of Sony Online Entertainment had been axed across the …

Shooter gamers and wannabe gangsters will be delighted to hear that the Mafia II Director’s Cut has been confirmed by 2K. An image of the $29.99 SKU – which includes three expansions and four style packs, as well as the original game – appeared on Amazon.com last week before being …

Capcom has announced that it has cancelled Megaman Universe. The project was a 2.5D platform title that would have been released on PSN and Xbox Live Arcade. The key selling point was the user-generated content, allowing players to edit levels from the game or create brand new ones. Gamers would …

A collection of Mega Drive games on PS3 will be free to download for PSN+ subscribers. The first digital title – Sonic the Hedgehog – hit the PlayStation Store yesterday and five others will arrive over the next few months. These include Sonic 2, Streets of Rage 2, Altered Beast …

THQ has been issued an injunction preventing it from illicitly pulling talent away from a Ubisoft studio in Canada. It has been discovered that Patrice Dsilets, a new THQ employee, had helped target developers working at Ubisoft Montreal who were believed could be convinced to switch employers. Last year, Dsilets …

Microsoft is to investigate claims that an organised group of people have made deceitful ratings to some Xbox Live Indie Games. The accusation is that Crosse Studios, developers of the XBLIG game College Lacrosse, had asked fans on its Facebook page to improve the user rating of the title. This …

Studio can 'meticulously capture body and face performance'

A PlayStation emulator has been removed from the Andorid Market today – because of the upcoming Xperia Play launch. That’s according to ZodTTD, the developer behind PSX4Droid. The emulator was available to Android phones before it was removed due to content violation”, reports Pocket Gamer. ZodTTD claimed on Twitter he …

Third of workforce made redundant, unconfirmed reports claim