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

Infogrames has sold its remaining stake in PAL-fulfillment arm Distribution Partners to Namco Bandai – signalling Atari’s latest step in its quest to eventually become an online-led publisher. Distribution Partners was formed last year, when Namco Bandai acquired a 34 per cent stake in Infogrames’ European and Asian distribution operations. …

Publisher EA has seemingly nailed its flag to the iPhone mast with the news that a number of its key gaming franchises are heading to the platform this year. Edge reports that snowboarding franchise SSX, the return of which was hinted at in the in-game commentary of 2008 racer Burnout …

GDC 09: CEO predicts games embracing technique to hit shelves by 2010

Initial details have been revealed for Star Trek DAC, the video game due for release alongside the upcoming Star Trek movie. Star Trek DAC will only be available as a downloadable title, according the film’s associate producer David Baronoff and Joshua Glazer, CTO of the game’s developer Naked Sky Entertainment, …

This week in Retail Biz, Granger Games has opened the first of four new stores as GAME wins best specialist at the Oracle Retail Week Awards.Elsewhere, the DSi has hit two million units sold in Japan, February’s NPD data was released for all to see, and the new Woolworths expects …

GDC 09: Casual gaming specialist hires Gustaf Kellner

Microsoft has outlined its efforts for developers, marking 2009 as the year it looks to ‘reduce risk and cut the cost of art development’ As part of that drive, the platform holder has announced a new version of the Xbox 360 development kit, and detailed a new version of its …

The Nickelodeon Kids and Family Games Group has revealed a brand new look for its Shockwave casual games portal, along with new membership incentives and a range of over 400 games. There has been explosive growth in online casual gaming in the past couple of years and people want to …

German developer Phenomic has been a little quiet since it was bought by EA. With its RTS Battleforge nearing release, Develop decided it was time to catch up with the studio.

Valve has unveil a new set of advanced features for its Steamworks platforms at GDC, offering a complete suite of publishing and development tools that promise to make DRM a thing of the past. In a statement to the press Valve points to the Custom Executable Generation technology as the …