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

Earlier this week Microsoft announced that it is to increase the price of some Xbox Live subscription packages – but Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter thinks the platform holder is preparing to take things much further. The extra $10 translates to around $100-150 million per year inadditional revenue for Microsoft,” …

Developers offered cash prizes for building netbook specific games

MAIET Entertainment and WeMade Entertainment both licence Autodesk Kynapse

Summer is traditionally the most quiet trading period in the games industry, and last month was no different, with sales down 13 per cent compared to July 2009. But it wasn’t all doom and gloom – Harry Potter: Years 1-4 enjoyed a place at the top and gave Warner Bros a boost, …

As was speculated yesterday, Sony is to launch an iTunes-rivalling digital music service for a number of its home entertainment products. Though technically it sounds impressive the branding could perhaps do with a little work – it’s called ‘Music Unlimited Powered by Qriocity’. Nonetheless, the European PlayStation Blog reports that …

Phil Harrisonâ??s new VC firm to offer talk on Britainâ??s £2m game fund

Star Wars developer LucasArts has issued redundancy notices to an unspecified number of staff at its San Francisco studio, the company has confirmed. The news adds to a wider picture of a group subjected to tumultuous policy change and swift restructuring, with key executives and longstanding designers quitting unexpectedly. A …

The UI group provided its tools to Transformers developer High Moon

Sony has confirmed at the IFA trade show that a patch to introduce 3D Blu-ray movie playback on PS3 will be released some time next month. It was first revealed in April that the planned June update that would bring the much-touted 3D game functionality to PS3 would not include …

Apple boss Steve Jobs has revealed that Epic Games is at work on its first title for Apple platforms, codenamed Project Sword. Jobs was joined on stage at today’s globally broadcast Apple announcement event by Epic president Mike Capps. The title provides first-person action and will apparently deliver ‘epic sword …