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

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell: Conviction has been given a concrete UK release date of April 16th. Ubisoft previously delayed the game from its original February 26th release date to a vague ‘April’ release in order to push the game back to the publisher’s next financial year. Conviction will arrive three …

The long-term aim of surpassing Xbox 360 to cement second place in hardware race looks one step closer for Sony this morning with news that PS3 unit sales have now hit 33.5m worldwide. The most recent figures from Microsoft say that Xbox 360 has sold 39m units globally. It was …

Japanese electronics giant Sony has posted operating profits of $1.6bn for its third fiscal quarter – its first profit in five quarters. It’s a big improvement on the $197m loss seen in the same period the year before. There were also strong results at the Networked Products and Services Division …

Develop asks an expert panel about the 2010 games jobs market

Reporting slight profits for its Q3, THQ has slashed 60 jobs and announced plans to realign some of its studios towards digital distribution platforms. The company reported profits of $542,000, compared to a loss of $192 million for the same period last year. Sales were flat at $357 million. The …

UK Juice and US Rainbow studios renamed and restructured under THQ Digital umbrella, charged with making online titles

Best Buy has refuted growing industry chatter about a partnership with European games specialist, GAME. Several industry nose-tappers have suggested the US retail giant is looking to buy GAME outright. Meanwhile, others suggested that branded in-store concessions would appear in Best Buy’s UK outlets when they open in the spring, …

Decorated game composer and producer joins Goichi Sudaâ??s team for EA project

Super Monkey Ball: Step & Roll will expand the fanbase for its long-running arcade-style puzzle franchise, thanks to Balance Board compatibility. That’s according to Sega, which is holding high hopes for the upcoming Wii title, due for release on February 12th. The firm believes the device’s accessibility will introduce the …

Microsoft has dashed hopes that the launch of a standalone SKU for the 250GB Xbox 360 HDD in Japan may lead to a similar move in the UK, while at the same time suggesting that the current top-end 120GB model is on the way out. Microsoft is now offering a …