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

Label president Gibeau says studio independence is key, though some game elements are mandatory

John Riccitiello has a plan to outsell Call of Duty: Make a better game. And make a better game again.” In an interview with Kotaku, the EA CEO said the publisher plans to develop and release a string of high-rated titles that will enable the firm to eventually dethrone Activision’s …

THQ has warned investors not to look at just NPD boxed product sales charts when judging the state of the industry. The publisher’s CEO Brian Farrell said the digital side of THQ’s business is performing well but isn’t reflected in NPD’s monthly US video game charts. In an interview with …

The general manager for Xbox in the UK has denied claims that his company is deliberately managing Kinect stock shortages in an effort to drum up hype in the key Christmas shopping season. The accusation was thrown at both Microsoft and Sony last week by US analyst Michael Pachter, who …

Can the publishing giant foster dev independence in a brutal market? We ask games label boss Frank Gibeau

Activision’s Call of Duty: Black Ops is back at the top of the UKIE GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40 this week, with last week’s number one Gran Turismo 5 having to settle for fourth place in its second week of release. Sony’s racer, though, remains the biggest selling single …

Perhaps deciding that it lacked the appetite for a cat-and-mouse style brawl over the hacking of its new line of Windows Phone 7 devices, Microsoft has come up with a novel way of deterring hackers from cracking its OS. Cnet reports that the platform holder has successfully convinced the creators …

Profoundly blurry pictures and hearsay – as far as the PSP2 goes that’s as concrete as it gets for now, but the evidence is seemingly more than enough for outspoken US analyst Michael Pachter to write off the machine before it’s even revealed. I think the PSP was dead on …

Any scepticism about the validity of pictures published in October has been swept away with the publishing of two videos of Sony Ericsson’s PlayStation Phone. Discovered by Engadget, the first video gives a detailed look at the construction of the device. A second, meanwhile, for the first time looks at …

BBC’s suspicion-raising Panorama documentary on games addiction doesn’t air until Monday night – but details of the broadcast are already leaking out. Reports by the Press Association and the Scotsman today offer a preview of the documentary, and it seems the documentary will look closely at how games ‘trick’ players. …