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

Microsoft has pledged to create 4,000 new jobs in the UK as part of a major government initiative. The Windows, Xbox and search engine giant is one of 19 organisations taking part in a new Downing Street scheme to boost the private electronics sector. It is not known which areas …

Record-breaking entrant numbers for the 2011 Independent Games Festival

A compatibility software engineer has managed to port an image taken from Kinect into the PC world-building game Minecraft. Nathan Viniconis explained on his personal blog how developers could utilise depth camera on Kinect and repurpose the data as a full 3D object within Minecraft’s block-built environments. Viniconis’s day job …

The popularity of Blizzard’s MMO World of Warcraft shows no signs of abating with news that the latest expansion for the title has broken another record in the PC market. The developer has revealed that WoW: Cataclysm sold an amazing 4.7m units worldwide in its first month of release – …

Software giant backs Prime Ministerâ??s new private sector push

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter has predicted that Wii emerged as the best selling home console of December in the US. Overall he reckons Nintendo’s machine sold 2.6m units. Just behind it, he foresees Xbox 360 sales of 2.5m units – more than double his predicted PS3 sales of 1.2m …

Compatibility software engineer details how breakthrough was made

1. Publishers to stop moaning about second-handPublishers have whined and whined about the evil that is pre-owned. They’ve even risked pissing off gamers with second user charges. What has retail done? Dedicated more space to it in-store. Get over it. 2. Tax breaksLook, let’s get this straight: it’s not happening. …

FIFA Ultimate Team fanatics 'spend thousands of dollars per month'

1. 3DSThis one is going to be massive. It has the sort of line-up to overly excite any fanboy and some of the most advanced tech seen in a handheld. New online functions, multiple control mechanism, movie services and a Game Boy Virtual Console come with the package. Oh, and …