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

For someone leading a cutting edge web games firm, Bigpoint CEO Heiko Hubertz has a surprising love-hate relationship with Facebook. As the biggest social network in the world, much of what he calls the big hype” around online games is focused on Facebook’s successes – Zynga and FarmVille or EA’s …

Games Investor analyst Nick Gibson has warned that PlayStation’s expected foray into the world of mobile telephony via a new handset coming from Sony Ericsson could damage cherished gaming brand. With PSP2 SDKs currently being deployed to developers and PSP still selling at surprisingly robust levels (given the miniscule size …

Hundreds expected for December event, with five games speakers set

The lucrative Black Friday shopping week has seemingly proved a very successful period for Nintendo.CVG reports that internal company estimates point to US sales of 900k units for DS and 600k units for Wii in the period between November 21st and November 27th. That represents total sales of 1.5m consoles …

A design for a ‘tactile touchscreen’ that allows users to feel textures as well as see them has been patented by Windows and Xbox platform holder Microsoft. New Scientist reports that the technology uses pixel-sized shape-memory plastic cells that can be ordered to protrude from the surface on command”. Several …

We catch up with David Perry as he puts Gaikai to the mercy of the masses

Rovio Mobile’s Angry Birds game has been downloaded more than 7m times on Android since its release in mid-October. The developer revealed the milestone in a tweet, responding to questions about why the game was made free and ad-supported for Android. Rovio launched Angry Birds as a free download via …

Royalty demands â??going the wrong way for games publishersâ?? says Frank Gibeau

UK developer Tag Games has landed a coup, signing a deal with BBC Worldwide to launch an official Doctor Who game for iPhone and iPad. The game, which is expected to launch before Christmas, will allow fans to play as the Doctor and as his current assistant Amy Pond. "Doctor …

Just days to go if you want to show off your studio's rising star