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

The Japan National Tourist Organisation has teamed up with Rising Star Games as part of its ongoing campaign to improve the country’s tourism industry and reputation. The initiative – entitled Cool Japan: Fusion with Tradition – is designed to promote the nation and its culture, as well as its legacy …

2009 drew to a close with the first ever console hardware launch not to support physical media – the PSPgo. Meanwhile, outlets who rely on physical media raged an astonishing price war that saw Tesco slash EA’s FIFA 10 to an incredible 24.97. The quarter also bought ominous news for …

Moving through another year of our historical journey, Tim Ingham gives a nod to the 12 months that gave us PS3, Xbox Elite – and a whole lot of consolidation… Click here to see the full piece in our features section.

Strong pre-Christmas sales kept Modern Warfare 2 at the top of the UK games chart, according to the latest report from GfK-ChartTrack/ELSPA. The game, which was last week named as the Christmas No.1 on December 21st, maintained its place in the following five days of Christmas trading with a 17 …

Digital distribution specialist GameStreamer is to launch its services in Europe, after opening a data centre in the UK. The firm will now offer its white label game stores to European clients. Its first Europe-based partner is VGChartz.com, which recently opened its own downloadable store. GameStreamer’s new centre is hosted …

Another quarter bought with it another Sony leak as images from a Chinese manufacturer spoilt Sony’s PS23 Slim surprise. Mind you, bigger shocks were to come with news that Activision intended to sell Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for an eye-watering 54.99. That wasn’t the only news from the …

Continuing our look through the history of games this decade, we glance back at the year Nintendo stole the show, with the arrival of its Wii and DS Lite… Click here to visit our features section for the whole thing.

As 2009 started to mature the tide was changing in Japan as PS3 overthrew Wii as the country’s best selling console. The arrival of the DSi provided some good news for Nintendo, but sad news came as the industry had to say goodbye to the much loved David Reeves. Q2 …

We reach 2005 in MCV’s look back at the past decade, which saw the arrival of the Xbox 360, PSP and DS. The full story is over in our features section.

Activision and Centresoft have heralded the importance of independent retailers as they seek more participants for their Promote and Devote 2009 initiative. The promotional event offers support to indies who prominently display Activision’s DJ Hero, with the publisher giving 30,000 to the sector. Promote and Devote 2009 follows on from …