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

It is an end of an era. CHIPSWORLD has closed all 12 of its company-owned stores and has made its staff redundant. The indie chain has been jointly run by Nik Agar and Don McCabe for 24 years. But it’s not quite all over for the brand. CHIPS’ franchise business …

LucasArts admitted last night that one of its most important developers has walked out on the company. Haden Blackman yesterday brought an end to his thirteen year spell at LucasArts by saying that now is the best time to explore new creative challenges”. His distinguished career at the company culminated …

Further expansion for the Facebook game empire

Global sales of the PS3 in the 12 months ending June 30th 2010 were about 4m units ahead of the sales enjoyed by Xbox 360. The number-crunching over on VG247 shows that Microsoft’s machine shifted 10.3m consoles in the last financial year. This compares to 14.3m unit sales of Sony’s …

Extraordinary world navigation camera can film Unreal Engine 3 scenes

It has been confirmed that the recent High Court ruling that illegalised the R4 DS card in the UK has also illegalised a number of other devices designed to perform the same task on Nintendo’s handheld. Specifically, the ruling applies to R4 DS, CycloDS Evolution, M3 DS, DS Linker, EZ, …

Firm offers no real-term refunds, refuses to answer questions

Despite initial scepticism over its price, Kinect looks set to be a big hit. Retailers are reporting high pre-order numbers for the device, which will be available in November for 129.99 bundled with Kinect Adventures. In fact MCV understands one large chain has encouraged stores to secure 10 pre-orders for …

On face value, it’s easy to see the 130 asking price for Kinect as Microsoft echoing back to the original Xbox and its high 299 RRP. 129.99 looks like a price for niche, not novelty. At least, that’s what a wave of cynical Twitterers (myself included) spluttered when launch details …

Haden Blackman in shock exit after 13 years, adding to the list of departing execs