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

Developer Valve has announced a new release date for Portal 2. The game had originally been planned for some time late this year, but in June Valve announced that the title had slipped until an unspecified time in 2011. The sequel to the ground-breaking title that won over 30 game …

Nintendo’s 25th Anniversary Mario Wii has gone down a storm in Japan during its first week on sale. The new limited edition console – which comes bundled with a WiiMote Plus, a copy of New Super Mario Bros Wii and a digital copy of Donkey Kong – helped lift week-on-week …

GAME and Tesco begin selling range of gift cards that can be redeemed against game purchases on social network

New title CityVille to launch across continents

Facebook’s push into the games sector has gone physical today as game retailer GAME and supermarket Tesco both introduce Facebook Credit gift cards in store. GAME will sell the cards in denominations of 5, 10 and 25 while Tesco will offer the 10 and 20 versions. The supermarket expects to …

As Call of Duty flew of shelves, Viacom waved the white flag on games, announcing plans to sell off prize studio Harmonix – just a matter of days after the team’s praised Rock Band 3 and Dance Central games arrived. The console game business requires an expertise we do not …

UK games retail’s boom week of 113m wasn’t just serendipitously timed to blow rival entertainment launches out of the water. It coincided with a clear change in direction for ‘Big Media’ when it comes to games. As Call of Duty flew of shelves, Viacom waved the white flag on games, …

The recent All Formats No.1 was just the start of what will become a long-term, highly lucrative and critically lauded relationship with Formula 1, Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens has told MCV. It will also broaden the appeal of the game next year with releases for new handheld formats, plus a …

Independent retailers say they ultimately did not miss out when must-have Xbox 360 peripheral Kinect rolled out last week. Key specialists have praised Gem and Microsoft for their handling of stock allocations. Indie chain Grainger Games told MCV the launch of Kinect went exceptionally well, with in-store space dedicated to …

The Black Ops boom has put UK games retail back on track after months of facing year-on-year market decline. The FPS made over 80m in the UK last week, and sold over 2m units in five days – helping the High Street towards its biggest week for games ever: 113m …