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

It’s been claimed , and denied , repeatedly since the demise of HD-DVD , but now new talk of a possible Blu-ray drive for Xbox 360 has emerged. Xbit Laboratories claims that the Toshiba-Samsung Storage Technology Corp has already entered into a contract to build external Blu-ray drives for Xbox …

Halo 3 was a massive success, but did it meet up with Microsoft’s expectations? Halo 3 has exceeded expectations and on the anniversary of its release is still the best-selling title on Xbox 360. Did you expect Halo 3 to still be in the Xbox 360 Top Ten a year …

The latest figures from the SPSL’s Retail Traffic Index have shown that retail footfall fell 0.9 per cent in September compared to the previous month, with annual drops proving even more significant. The Retail Bulletin reports that August showed a surprise 0.1 per cent year-on-year increase in retail footfall, but …

Microsoft has dated the launch of ‘the new Xbox experience’ 360 dashboard update for November 19th. The new firmware was first unveiled at E3 this year and will introduce Microsoft’s Wii-style avatar system, Live Party, more on-demand HD entertainment and a Community Games channel – all part of the overhauled …

A sequel to Grasshopper’s cult Wii classic, No More Heroes, is on the way. Revealed through a teaser trailer at the Tokyo Games Show, the unique action title is currently dubbed No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle, and is due for release next year. No platforms for the sequel have been …

Microsoft has unveiled a new chapter in the Halo franchise set for touchdown in autumn ’09, entitled Halo 3: Recon. The Bungie-developed title, which has for weeks been teased on Bungie’s official website (courting a little controversy in the process) will take the form of a standalone expansion set before …

UK mobile developer FinBlade has just released the casual-orientated Movie Quiz, its fourth title for Appleâ??s iPhone, with previous iPhone games from the UK start-up studio including Tennis Slam, Ernie Els Golf 2008 (published with Player One) and the top 10 Apple App Store hit Wordsearch.

DotA-Allstars team members working on RTS-RPG hybrid League of Legends

YouTube will start ‘selling’ games via links from its popular video game-relevant videos to online stores. The Google-owned site will split revenue with the likes Amazon and iTunes on sales of music, films, TV shows, video games, books, concert tickets and other media-related products that are bought by those following …

Web giant Google has finally unveiled its long-awaited bid to enter the in-game advertising sector, revealing it is putting a big focus of the strategy on casual games. In a post on the blog for the firm’s web advertising team Adsense, Google reps said that it is targeting web games …