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

Sales double in 2010 as rival engine firms slide

Season-specific content high on publishers' digital release plans

Andrew Thompson, the head of games at supermarket Asda, has told MCV that increasing competition in the games sector forced it to adopt a pre-owned games strategy. Tesco, Argos and Best Buy all let customers trade in against anything in store. And he adds that publisher’s do understand the retailer’s …

Retail’s defence of pre-owned is a simple one.Consumers trade in their games so they can buy new ones. It helps inflate sales of newly released titles, and the specialist retailers all have stats to back up this claim, too. But unfortunately that argument has broken down now the likes of …

Microsoft has revealed details of its first add-on pack for Xbox 360 exclusive Fable III. Owners of the action RPG will be able to purchase the Understone Quest Pack for 400 Microsoft Points (around 4) on November 23rd. The DLC includes three quests that take place in a secret town …

Engine owner Stonetrip aims to capture the Torque user base

A consortium of eight UK studios will band together under with a mission to build their own publishing business, in a new scheme backed by key trade associations and the government. This collaboration of digital, social and independent UK developers already has the support of creative industry investment group NESTA, …

It was thought that Sony had won the battle, but the team behind the PSJailbreak hack has released a new version of the device that works with Sony’s latest firmware for PS3. Last month it was reported that the measures implemented by Sony in the latest update for the console …

The UK arm of retailer Amazon has announced that it will be bringing one of America’s biggest shopping holidays to Amazon.co.uk. Black Friday is the name given to the day after Thanksgiving, as is traditionally seen as the beginning of the Christmas spending period in the US. This year it …

Eight-studio collaboration backed by NESTA, Tiga, UKIE and Whitehall