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

As Square Enix expands its presence in the west with the 84.3 million acquisition of Eidos, global president Yoichi Wada has criticised Japan’s development culture for being too inwardly-focused. In the last five to 10 years, the Japanese games industry has become a closed environment, with no new people coming …

All Sega studios, as well as Capcom and Grin, among the crowd of teams licensing Nvidiaâ??s PhysX and APEX tools

Squareâ??s Yoichi Wada calls for an end to Japanâ??s â??closed environmentâ??, adds that Square Enix may acquire more western groups

High Street retailer GAME has launched a special offer for customers following its success at the MCV Awards last week. The chain’s ‘award winning offers’ includes a Wii for 164.99 and a DSi for 139.99, and will run until May 4th. The cut-price hardware can only be gained by using …

Keep on moving is the message for the UK games business in 2009, as demonstrated by leading execs in this year’s MCV Awards video skit. Watch David Yarnton (Nintendo), Michael Rawlinson (ELSPA), John Clark (Sega), Martyn Gibbs (Gamestation) and Murray Pannell (Ubisoft) re-enact the dance moves from a cheesy pop …

Californian online game publisher to partner with Petroglyph following the shock-exodus of president Jon Van Caneghem

Never doubt the appetite for all things Final Fantasy in Japan – sales of PS3 rocketed last week after the arrival of a playable demo of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIII on the Blu-ray release of CGI movie Final Fantasy: Advent Children Complete. Sales of Sony’s machine hit 62,527, up …

Production of FPS announced in 2006 transfers to UK studio

Apple has cut around ten per cent of its workforce during the second quarter of 2009, according to documents released to the Securities and Exchange Commission. According to the document, Apple cut its full-time workforce from 15,600 to 14,000 during the second quarter. It is unclear if the retailer made …

Employees of Empire Interactive are experiencing ‘dreadful circumstances’ as the company drags its feet over confirming their fate. MCV broke the news on Friday that the firm had fallen into administration, and that all staff are expected to be made redundant this week. One employee told us: On Friday, MCV …