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

Former EA product manager Kerri West has joined SCE UK. She takes up the role of product manager and will look after the firm’s line-up of social games, such as SingStar, Buzz and forthcoming titles for PlayStation Move. West had previously worked at EA for three years, most recently as …

Sony, HMV and THQ have hit back at the retailers calling for lower-priced video games. Key execs claim publishers risk devaluing their products if they were to give in to demands from companies such as Sainsbury’s. The supermarket chain told suppliers to slash the price of video games at its …

UTV Ignition will leave its sub-distribution days behind as it transforms into a triple-A digital games giant. The company has recently opened three studios in Tokyo, Florida and London, and has hired former IGN Europe chief Justin Keeling to head up its global digital strategy. This includes recruiting developers to …

Writing about HMV is a welcome change to all the doom and gloom surrounding retail at the moment. Their profits? Up. Their store count? Increasing. Whereas the rest of retail talks of consolidation and decline, HMV is enjoying expansion and growth. And the reason for this success? Well, the loss …

Video games will play a major part in HMV’s ambition to become an ‘entertainment superbrand.’ The firm wants to be seen as more than just a retailer, and already sells music tickets, owns music venues and cinemas. And during its entertainment conference last week, the retailer called upon the games …

EA Sports has announced a major deal with the English Premier League that will promote the brand throughout televised matches – and deliver extra content for future FIFA games. It has become the EPL’s Official Sports Technology Partner and will be creating the EA Sports Player Performance Index, to be …

All Argos stores will offer a video game trade-in service from Saturday July 24th. The pre-owned offer coincides with the launch of the firm’s 74th Argos catalogue. Customers will have the chance to trade in around 250 different titles for Argos gift cards that can be spent on any product …

A standard edition of popular PS3 RPG Demon’s Souls has been confirmed by Namco Bandai, and will hit stores on August 20th. The publisher released the UK version of the game last month in limited numbers. It was only available as a ‘Black Phantom Edition’ with a CD soundtrack, art …

The Daily Star journalist who penned yesterday’s story claiming that a Grand Theft Auto game based around the recent Rothbury shootings is in the works has stated that he’s surprised by the reaction to the piece. Furthermore, speaking on his Facebook page Lawton chose to make a further dig at …

When Xbox Live first made the move to PC, cross-platform play between Xbox 360 and PC gamers was very much central to Microsoft’s ambitions. So why is Shadowrun still the only high-profile game to offer the functionality. There was a project that got killed at Microsoft,” Voodoo PC founder and …