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

You'd be forgiven for not knowing Paradox, a Swedish studio dedicated to catering for hardcore historical strategy gamers. Releasing your game engine for free, and giving a distribution and royalty-sharing deal to anyone, however, is bound to get you noticed - and noticed they were, says CEO Thedore Bergquist...

Microsoft has announced that Xbox 360 has become the first next-gen home console to hit 10 million unit sales in the US. "History has shown us that the first company to reach 10 million in console sales wins the generation battle," said Microsoft senior VP Don Mattrick in a statement. …

A tough comparison to last year – when Blizzard’s World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade was released – has left Vivendi Games’ revenue for its first fiscal quarter down 24 per cent year-on year. The division’s full revenue for the quarter ended March 31st, 2008 was €221 million ($341.5 m) …

Wedbush analyst Michael Pachter has given his verdict on whether EA will end up buying Take Two this week – and so long as the Rockstar parent is ‘reasonable’ he believes it’s likely to go ahead. EA’s $2 billion tender bid for Take Two is set to expire on Friday, …

The global president of MTV Networks’ digital division has predicted that EA and other established boxed video games publishers face a "huge challenge" in making serious money from free-to-play casual titles. Speaking to MCV sister site CasualGaming.biz, Salmi said that MTV had a huge advantage” over companies such as EA, …

Boss of Microsoft Games Studios Shane Kim has told CVG that Microsoft is confident the Xbox 360 will have a seven-year lifespan. That would mean the console continuing to thrive until 2012 – seven years after its first launch at Christmas 2005. Speaking at the Microsoft spring media summit in …

UK grocer Sainsbury’s has reported a particularly strong performance by games and technology during the Christmas trading period in its annual fiscal report – and pledged to up its non-food offering over the next two years. The company has also announced that half of all new in-store space built until …

Video game firm Sega’s parent, Sega Sammy Holdings, has reported a net loss of 52.47 billion Japanese Yen ($499 million) for the 12 months to March 31st, 2008. The figure compares unfavourably to the firm’s net income from FY 2006-2007 of 43.46 billion Yen ($413.4m). Revenue also dropped sharply – …

MMO specialist NCsoft has launched a series of ‘Starter Packs’ for its major franchises Guild Wars, City of Heroes/City of Villains and Lineage II, priced at 1.99. Each pack gives players 14 days of play time on each title to serve as an introduction to MMORPG gaming. Players who wish …

Sony expects to sell 10 million PS3 units in the next financial year. That’sonly slightly up from up from the 9.24 million the firm this morning announced it had shifted for the 12 months ending March 31st, 2008. PSP hardware sales – which led the way for the PlayStation family …