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

Having spent the day getting to grips with Microsoft’s Project Natal yesterday, comments from outspoken TV presenter Jonathan Ross point to a possible October release date for the anticipated Xbox 360 peripheral. The news is roughly in line with news obtained by MCV last year suggesting that Microsoft is preparing …

id co-founderâ??s legendary status to be cemented at GDC

LucasArts’ third person action adventure Star Wars: The Force Unleashed has now sold 7m units worldwide, the publisher has confirmed to GameSpot. The game was first released in September 2008 and shot straight to the top of the ELSPA GfK Chart-Track All Formats Top 40, enjoying the biggest ever release …

A look at best connecting your iPhone game to its audience

Sega’s Vancouver 2010: The Official Video Game has returned to the Top 10 of the Xbox 360 and PS3 charts as interest grows in the current Winter Olympics. The game saw a 274 per cent rise in sales during the week ending February 20th, 2010, driven primarily by the console …

Batman: Arkham Asylum developer bought by the DC Comics owner

Growing video games publisher Warner Bros Interactive has acquired a majority stake in London-based developer Rocksteady Studios. The move comes after the tremendous success enjoyed by Rocksteady’s 2009 release Batman: Arkham Asylum. The deal is the latest in Warner’s ongoing strategy to strengthen its internal development capacity. In 2007 it …

Mind-boggling” – that’s the word Activision boss Bobby Kotick used to describe how he felt about the $7m acquisition of Blizzards by Davidson & Associates in 1994. The exec couldn’t believe the ludicrous amount of money Blizzard had been sold for” at the time. Eight years down the line Kotick …

iPhone game publisher Ngmoco has bought developer Freeverse and announced that it has raised a further $25 million in funding bringing its total – after three rounds – to over $40 million. To read the full story, head over to sister site CasualGaming.biz.

The total value of the global video games software market will reach $64.9bn by 2013 – a jump of approximately 28 per cent on its current value – according to a new report by Strategy Analytics. The report, entitled ‘Global Video Game Market Forecast’, predicts not only a rise in …