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

It may be suffering a little cramp as it races down the closing straight, but Nintendo’s DS handheld now seems well on track to steal gaming’s most cherished sales record. Sony’s PlayStation 2 currently stands as the world’s most popular console, with total global sales estimated at around 135m units. …

Ubisoft’s long-awaited Splinter Cell: Conviction has emerged as the best selling game in April in the US market, according to numbers from NPD. Its 486.1k sales place it above the likes of Pokemon Soul Silver (242.9k), New Super Mario Bros Wii (200.3k) and Pokemon Heart Gold (192.6k). Sony’s PS3-only God …

Claims that Singularity dev Raven Software is making map packs for FPS

At first glance it might seem as if Nintendo’s hardware was the star performer in the somewhat disappointing US April video games market, but a quick look back to this time last year paints a far from happy picture for the Kyoto firm. The headline figures show that Nintendo enjoyed …

Industry stalwarts join disabled gaming advocates Special Effect

The fight rages on between Flash and iPhone firms

Frontier Developments chairman warns against hardcore gaming pretensions

Norwegian studio purchases minority stake in Stunlock Studios AB, agrees to publish first title

SpecialEffect, the charity dedicated to helping young people with disabilities play video games, has recruited journalist Johnny Minkley and PR Kirsty Payne as its new vice presidents. The charity previously developed eye-control gaming technology, online service gamebase.info and supports hospitals, specialist schools and hospices to find the right equipment for …

NPD’s stats for the month of April made for grim reading in the U.S late Thursday. Game sales plunged 22 percent on the same period last year. Hardware sales were down 37 percent. Overall sales were down from over $1 billion a year ago, to $766 million. So far this …