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

Disney has unveiled details of the next game in the Spectrobes series, entitled Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals, which is due out for Nintendo DS The title picks up from the original game, continuing the story of Rallen and Jeena, interplanetary patrol officers who discover, excavate, awaken and train mysterious fossilised …

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter believes GameStop made a big mistake by not buying Gamestation, according to videogaming247 . GameStop was expected to come in for the ex-Blockbuster owned chain, before GAME made a bid, and Pachter feels this has slowed GameStop’s move into Europe. GameStop always had the capacity …

Launching globally in 2009, The Sims 3 has shifted 98 million units worldwide since its beginnings in 2000. The new title will boast a seamless open-world environment, a huge number of storytelling options and a huge number of locations. EA is particularly pushing the new create-a-Sim interface, highly realistic personalities …

Deus Ex creator on how games are failing as a interactive narrative medium

A report on Variety’s The Cut Scene Blog has suggested that there is unrest amongst Vivendi developers ahead of Activision merger – read the full story on Develop here.

HALO 3 Head of Gaming and Entertainment, Entertainment and Devices Division at Microsoft UK, Stephen McGill, explains why the Halo 3 launch was such a success: There’s no doubt that our ground-breaking marketing campaign was a pivotal driver to the success of Halo 3. Expectations amongst consumers were extremely high, …

Unrest amongst Vivendi developers ahead of Activision merger with possible project cull in the offing, says report

EA chief executive John Riccitiello has said that his employer can be Rockstar’s ‘white knight’ – suggesting that only a successful acquisition of Take Two can give the developer a secure future. However, leading analysts have condemned the statement, with Janco Partners’ Mike Hickey telling GameDaily.biz: My belief is Rockstar …

Deus Ex creator Warren Spector used to be a man always in the headlines, but the past few years have seen his Junction Point studio joining the Disney Interactive family and little else. We caught up with him at GDC08 to talk independence, reputation and the problems with game stories...

Viacom-owned MTV Networks’ kids brand Nickelodeon has big plans in the casual games space – head over to Develop for the full story.