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

As part of its NPD stat-fest last night, platform holder Microsoft has confirmed two notable sales victories for its motion sensing camera peripheral Kinect. Speaking on Twitter, chief of staff for Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business Aaron Greenberg confirmed that both Rare-developer Kinect Sports and Harmonix made dance game Dance Central …

'Service-based online team' to be based at its Warwickshire HQ

THE LUCRATIVE F1 licence is heading to internet browsers courtesy of a new development team. Described as a ‘service-based online game’, Codies is recruiting the team specifically for the project. The new team will be based at its Warwickshire HQ and available positions can be found on the Codemasters website. …

Gaming stalwart Nintendo is this morning rightly singing loudly about its transformation in this generation of machines, heralding its unprecedented success in the US market. The DS and Wii have been confirmed as the best selling consoles of 2010 in the US with sales of 8.5m and 7m respectively. These …

Despite not arriving until November, Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops has been named by NPD as the best selling game of 2010 in the US. The success mirrors the dominance shown by the shooter on this side of the Atlantic. And also echoing the UK charts, EA’s football game …

Sales of Xbox 360 hardware were up an amazing 42 per cent year-on-year in the US in December, paving the way the console’s most successful ever month in the territory. In total it sold 1.86m units – significantly less than the 2.5m analyst Michael Pachter had predicted but still an …

The latest numbers from US games tracker NPD have shown that the US video games market declined 5.7 per cent year-on-year in 2010. This means that of the world’s leading video games markets the US market declined less the least. The Japanese market shrank by nine per cent in 2010 …

Publishers and other games firms can now target fitness fans directly with advertisements in gyms across the UK. Boomerang Media says it reaches almost 900,000 individuals in over 250 health clubs – including Fitness First and Virgin Active – which can be targeted by location or chain. Adverts can be …

Core games boss Danny Bilson to target Montreal dev scene for more hires

Since Nintendo’s Wii Fit arrived in April 2008, fitness games have emerged as a key sector for casual gamers, gym goers and those who wouldn’t usually pick up a controller. Going into 2011 the category is stronger than ever – during the past 12 months it has seen an explosion …