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

WiiWare Week: Independent developers reveal format-holder's strategy to boost digital download support

Ambitious Hollywood games firm eyes more development partnerships as it inks Factor 5 deal, its second signing in as many days

When you cut through all the praise and polemic spouted by studios when it comes to digital distribution there is one point that often gets overlooked: the exact cost benefit gained when it comes to sales of games on any platform, from casual portals to Xbox Live Arcade.

Sega of America has named Sean Ratcliffe vice president of marketing. Ratcliffe previously worked for Disney Interactive Studios as marketing director of EMEA, where he helped launch The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Spectrobes, and most recently, Turok. …

Xbox’s quest to become the console of choice for families will be given a huge boost by becoming the first system to offer a library of 1,000 games this summer. That’s according to Xbox VP for Microsoft Interactive Entertainment Europe Chris Lewis, who this week told MCV that Xbox Live …

Samsung, Sony and Sharp are selling Blu-ray players for the highest prices all year, following what is generally considered the demise of rival format HD-DVD, according to a price comparison on Tom’s Hardware . Advocate vendors of Blu-ray dropped prices of players earlier this year, in a move which put …

A new Research and Markets report has forecast that the Mexican video games market could be worth as much as $1 billion by 2010. The review states that the Mexican video game industry is ‘exploding’ and ‘attracting major new marketing investment and luring global game publishers to establish local offices’. …

Brash Entertainment is to spearhead the convergence of film and gaming by releasing 40 blockbuster movie-based titles, all developed closely alongside their film counterparts. The growing company boasts intimate ties with Hollywood’s most prestigious movie studios – and has told MCV that gaming has become the talk of Tinseltown. There …

The campaign for a UK games production tax credit has spilt over the boundary of the industry – with one concerned consumer starting a petition aimed at Prime Minister Gordon Brown demanding he look into the possibility of implementing tax breaks for the games industry. To read the story in …

Tomorrow’s price drop on all three Xbox 360 SKUs will give the console the boost it needs to rule the next-gen battle this summer, Microsoft has told MCV. The platform holder has made a clear attempt to lure in famillies with the cuts, which see its Arcade model retail for …