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

Sony has vowed to defeat the renewed surge of people breaking through the security measures built into the PS3. Having successfully breached the console last year, hacker George Hotz has shared his knowledge with the public earlier this week, enabling the creation of custom firmware. Sony has traditionally been quiet …

The key to winning the war of handheld devices isn’t by lowering the price of games, but by providing ‘great content’. That’s the view of Nintendo of America president Reggie Fils-Aime after being asked by CNET how the firm can compete with cheap and free games available on the iPhone …

VC-funded social media firm Flock the latest Zynga firm

The Lord of the Rings Online MMO is making three times as much money since adopting a free-to-play subscription model, the game’s developer has claimed. Massachusetts-based studio Turbine incorporated free-to-play subscriptions in its MMO series last year, though still offers two additional subscriptions – standard and premium – at a …

Andriasang has got hold of Enterbrain’s annual Japanese video games market report, and it reveals another year of decline in the region. In total the market shrunk by nine per cent year-on-year in the last 12 months arching a total value of Y494bn (3.8bn). Hardware suffered the steepest decline, falling …

Sonyâ??s sloppy secret shows promise

Online game said to be buzzing with new players

Having enjoyed a very strong Christmas, Ubisoft’s Michael Jackson: The Experience has now sold over 2m units across Europe, North America, Asia and the Middle East. There’s more to come from the game too, with a Japanese release incoming and an April release for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions …

Christmas may be over, but Nintendo just keeps on giving, with three copies of both Mario Sports Mix on Wii and Mario Vs Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem on DS up for grabs. To be in with a chance of winning, just answer the following question: Which of the following sports …

Just hours after going live yesterday afternoon, Apple’s Mac App Store has already been hacked by pirates. Bizarrely, however, the team behind the crack has said it won’t publicly release the exploit until next year in case it upsets developers. When the public do get their hands on the software, …