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

EA-owned developer of Need for Speed and Skate 2 sees over half its headcount let go

Along with its financial results and confirmation of a new outing for Assassin’s Creed, Ubisoft has also confirmed that its next-gen sandbox shooter Far Cry has now sold 2.9m copies worldwide. In addition, Shaun White Snowboarding has sold 2.3m copies and can claim the crown of being the second best-selling …

As part of yesterday’s positive financial filing from Ubisoft , it was confirmed that the much-rumoured Assassin’s Creed 2 is in development and will be out before the end of the publisher’s financial year – or more likely – in time for Christmas. Along with the new Altair title, it …

Rockpool team shut down and around 14 staff made redundant

Cologne’s Gamescom trade event will host a meeting between ‘around a dozen’ member associations from the Interactive Software Federation of Europe (ISFE) next month. The members will get together in Cologne’s trade fair centre on February 9th and 10th for their first meeting in 2009. Olaf Wolters, Managing Director of …

Martin Good, the senior vice president of Australian distributor THQ Asia Pacific, has told MCV that has firm is ready to make the most of any opportunities that arise in the region as a result of the turmoil caused by the recent troubles at Red Ant. Red Ant was placed …

Britsoft publisher Eidos has dated its two Xbox 360 exclusive DLC packs for recent adventure outing Tomb Raider: Underworld. The first, Beneath the Ashes, will be released on Microsoft’s network on February 10th, whilst the second, Lara’s Shadow, will be released on March 10th. Beneath the Ashes sends our iconic …

Ubisoft has reported sales of €508 million for the third quarter of 2008-09, up 12.9 per cent – or 17 per cent at constant exchange rates – on the €450 million recorded a year previously. For the first nine months of fiscal 2008-09 sales totaled €852 million, versus €711 million …

Rockstar has announced that the upcoming Xbox 360-exclusive downloadable content for Grand Theft Auto IV, named The Lost and the Damned, will cost 1600 Microsoft points when it’s released on February 17th, Eurogamer reports. That equates to around 13.50 in real money, though can work out cheaper depending on where …

Leading software developer and Xbox 360 platform holder Microsoft has confirmed the speculation that it is to slash 5,000 members of its global workforce following an 11 per cent year-on-year decline in net profit. For the three months ending December 31st the firm reported a net profit of $4.17bn. Shares …