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

In what surely amounts to something of a PR nightmare for all involved, Codemasters Studios’ VP Gavin Cheshire has labelled Sony’s PSP as a bollocking useless waste of space”. The blast comes despite the high-profile release of Codemasters’ licensed racing title F1 2009 on the PSP late last year. Well, …

The European arm of rental specialist Blockbuster is up for sale, according to newspaper reports. The Scotsman claims that 50m is the asking price for the chain’s entire European network. That deal would include all 650 UK stores and 5,000 UK staffers. US finance house Winchester Capital has reportedly been …

Particle effects license for ZeniMax Online Studios project

As predicted by MCV last week, Argos has begun to trial a pre-owned games service across select stores. The trial will run in 27 of its 735 stores, predominantly in the North-East of England at locations including Durham, Gateshead and Newcastle. Customers will be able to buy pre-owned titles from …

Microsoft has – via the medium of Twitter – announced that Xbox 360 exclusive superhero sandbox title Crackdown 2 will be released in the UK and Europe on July 9th. The game is being developed by new startup Ruffian Games, a studio formed by the founders of Realtime Worlds – …

Renowned Japanese games firm SNK Playmore has set its sights on the UK market with the upcoming launch of Samurai Shodown Sen. The game is the latest in the long-running beat ‘em up series, and is due for an April release on Xbox 360 via Rising Star. We are thrilled …

Final Fantasy studio hiring for major systems overhaul

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has added another notable notch to its bedpost with news that it is now the second best selling game ever in the UK video games market. In doing so Activision’s title overtakes the total UK lifetime sales of Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, …

Post-release digital support titles is very much the trend nowadays and is proving a popular means of monetising new games, but EA sees its ongoing support for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 as serving another purpose – toppling Modern Warfare 2. The game is such a quality package with a best-in-class …

Resistance dev heard discussing cross-platform software at GDC