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

The European office of Square Enix makes its first public showing since buying Eidos at Gamescom this week – labelling the event ‘very important’ to its new strategy. The firm will show off titles including Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIV (pictured), Nier and Front Mission Evolved in Cologne, as …

Sony has confirmed that PS3’s on-off backwards compatibility support for back catalogue PS2 titles has been abandoned for good with news that the new PS3 will not support the feature. Backwards compatibility is off the table,” SCEA’s hardware marketing director John Koller told Kotaku. Koller also confirmed that the new …

Having snapped up Eidos this year, Square Enix is planning a bumper extravaganza for Cologne’s trade show. Tim Ingham interviews the publisher’s product boss Larry Sparks… Which games are you expecting the biggest reaction to at Gamescom? We expect all of our titles to receive favourable reactions. As always there …

Speaking on the US PlayStation blog, Sony America president Jack Tretton has hailed the success of Sony’s PS3 for the speed at which the company has moved to launch a redesign. For the original Playstation and the PlayStation 2 we announced revisions of the hardware in the third and fourth …

The Zenimax-owned developer will now focus staff on a new project

SCEE has confirmed that its long-awaited movies-on-demand service is heading to Europe, with the UK, France, Germany and Spain set to receive the service first of all, kicking off this November. The service will allow users to both watch films over their PS3 and also on their PSP – with …

A new service called Digital Reader is set to launch on PSP this year. The service will launch with Digital Comics, which will give consumers the chance to download hundreds of classic and new comics from the PlayStation Store. Titles including Marvel’s Spider-Man, X-Men and Fantastic Four comics will be …

Publisher Codemasters will release F1 2009 on Wii with a special limited edition race wheel. The new accessory is styled after an actual F1 racing wheel, and the Wii Remote slots into the shell. F1 2009 is scheduled for release this Christmas on PSP and Wii, and is based on …

GAMESCOMâ??09: The German company offers iPhone devs better game exposure

Gameloft has agreed a licensing deal with developer Interplay that will see the arrival of a new Earthworm Jim title – bringing an end to a decade of absence for the franchise. Details of the new Jim project are scarce, yet it is known that the new game is being …