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

Listeners to BBC Radio 5Live this morning have heard the broadcaster’s return to the touchy subject of alleged video games addiction. The surprise report comes as the result of advice from government childhood safety advisor John Carr who has called for schools to educate kids about safe video gaming. Last …

Darkspore will arrive in stores before the end of this year’s first quarter, EA has revealed. The PC action RPG game will be released on March 29th according to a new developer diary trailer. Darkspore allows players to take control of powerful aliens and upgrade them with thousands of body …

While the NGP is undoubtedly a technical powerhouse, there is one technology notable by its absence from the spec sheet – 3D. It’s a notable decision for two reasons. Firstly, Sony has done more than any other tech company to push home 3D technology across its PlayStation, Bravia and content …

Sony’s latest PS3 firmware update has already been overcome by hackers just hours after going live. As mentioned in the news story about Sony winning a restraining order against George Hotz, the platform holder launched firmware update 3.56 on PSN last night. The patch adds a new security update. However …

SCE not yet decided on price or release date

The UK’s only growing games chain is on the hunt for senior retail experts to cement itself as the second-largest specialist. Grainger Games opened its 49th store yesterday (Thursday, January 27th). If you include its website it now operates out of 50 outlets. Its growth is being led by retail …

Phenomenal pre-order demand means Nintendo will have to bring more 3DS stock to the UK than it did for day one of the Wii launch. MCV understands the format holder is beefing up manufacturing and replenishment plans to ensure it doesn’t face retail-worrying shortages. Pre-orders are already outpacing Wii’s total …

George ‘geohot’ Hotz has been issued a temporary restraining order preventing him from distributing PS3 homebrew software. The judge granted Sony its request for the order which was submitted earlier this month. Court documents published by PSX Scene read: The court finds that SCEA has shown a likelihood of success …

Retailer GAME has this week informed staff members of 19 stores that it intends to close in the coming weeks. The move comes as part of the store closure plan outlined back in April 2010. "You will remember that last April we announced plans to close 85 UK stores over …

Despite promising a NGP launch in 2011 at its Tokyo press event yesterday, Sony has warned that its unlikely that consumers in the three major markets – the US, Japan and Europe – that a launch this year in all three territories is unlikely. "I know [our launch date] is …