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

Call of Duty: Black Ops is the UK’s biggest selling game of the year, according to Gfk Chart-Track. The first person shooter – which sold 2m units in its first week on sale – beat off competition from FIFA 11, Just Dance and Red Dead Redemption to take the prize. …

The first video footage of games being played on Sony Ericsson’s still unannounced PlayStation Xperia smartphone have been posted online. As spotted by The Sixth Axis, the film shows the unit booting ROMS of PSOne titles Biohazard 2 (the Japanese name for Resident Evil 2) and Rage Racer (Ridge Racer …

Retina movement mapped via electronic charge readings

Like OpenFeint, its user numbers soared over the festive season

Sam & Max studio to favour more open-ended gameplay

And this week a rival entertainment medium put us to shame. Video’s respective trade group had a gamut of data for both physical and digital on hand to prove DVD and Blu-ray’s 2.6bn robustness. Pre-owned aside, there is something the games industry can do to show we’re worth it, too. And …

With a hole of 500m in the High Street when it comes to games, I don’t think anyone expected fireworks from the end-of-year data. In the digital era, are these figures still relevant? For the majority, , they still are of course. But while we can spin nice and chunky …

The UK games market in 2010 was down more than 400m year-on-year, but critics say this doesn’t show the true health of the market. According to Gfk Chart-Track figures the games market has fallen 13 per cent to 2.875bn. But this number does not take into account pre-owned sales, which …

Retailers have adjusted the price of games following the VAT rise. With margins already tight, stores have passed on the increase to customers to maintain profit. GAME, Gamestation, HMV and Argos are among the High Street retailers which have raised prices, while online firms Amazon, Play and ShopTo have also added …

MMORPG specialists Wushuang acquired for undisclosed fee