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

Viacom’s global kids entertainment network Nickelodeon has paid 5.9m to capture the worldwide rights to the popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles brand from The Mirage Group. The firm has pledged to continue working with many of the Turtles’ existing licensing partners, though question marks remain over the long-term future of …

Publishing rights to Russian studio 4A Games’ long-in-the-works Metro 2033 have been bought by THQ. The publisher will release the game on 360 and PC next year. Metro 2033 is based on a best-selling Russian novel by Dmitry Glukhovsky and is built with 4A’s cutting edge proprietary engine. For the …

After what must have been a prolonged period of number crunching, Gamasutra has concluded that 15 per cent of the total revenue generated by Call of Duty: World at War in North America has come from sales of additional digital content for the game. In total this represents $45m, taking …

AUDIO SPECIAL: The Audio Guys talk to Develop about contributing to Forza 3

In news that isn’t all that surprising, Microsoft’s European creative director of Microsoft Game Studios Peter Molyneux has confirmed that Lionhead’s upcoming RPG Fable III will support the motion-sensing Natal camera. News first came from Gamesbrief’s Nicholas Lovell, who was in the audience at Molyneux’s BAFTA seminar last night. Seeing …

Many headlines on the internet this morning will lead you to believe that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer confirmed overnight plans to release an external Blu-ray drive for Xbox 360. Whether this is actually the case or not remains to be seen. The furore comes courtesy of an interview with Gizmodo. …

High street retailers have been accused of locking new IPs out of the market this Christmas – and limiting consumer choice by only dedicating shelf space to ‘formulaic sequels’ and pre-owned games. In a letter to MCV, Rising Star Games’ MD and COO Martin Defries said that new content and …

Sony has confirmed that Ratchet and Clank: A Crack in Time will arrive on November 6th in the UK and November 4th in Europe. It is Insomniac’s third Ratchet and Clank game for PS3 – following 2007’s Tools of Destruction and 2008’s Quest for Booty. A special edition for the …

It may seem unfair to select in isolation a comment from your recent editorial column, doing so allows me to get on my soapbox and have a good old moan. While I share your congratulations to Codemasters on their recent performance, your column remarked variety at retail is to be …

Publisher signs up 4A Games' Nvidia-powered Metro 2033 for 360/PC release next year