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

Martin de Ronde and Eidos CTO Julien Merceron to present at Gateshead event

The new partnership will focus on titles for DS and Wii, including Nanostray 2, Toy Shop, Cake Mania 2 and Nancy Drew: The Mystery of the Clue Bender Society for DS, and Wild Earth: African Safari, Our House and Cake Mania for Wii. The deal also includes several unannounced games …

VP of product marketing at Sony Computer Entertainment America Scott Steinberg has called Wii’s long-term future into question – adding that PS3’s games will begin to distance themselves from other next-gen games”. Speaking to Next-Gen, Steinberg said: In three years certain systems will look pretty long in the tooth graphically …

XNA lead Satchell tells us how Xbox Live Community Games will foster independent development

With just five weeks to go, the Finalists of the MCV Industry Excellence Awards have been revealed . Retailers, publishers, distributors and developers are doing battle. Over 40 companies are still in with a shout of winning something on the night. Apart from our Advisory Board Award, voted for exclusively …

As the final piece of the XNA intiative falls into place with Xbox Live Community Games, we caught up with XNA lead Chris Satchell to get more detail on how distribution to ten million Xbox Live subscribers will draw even more into game development and help the struggling talent pipeline...

Chief executive of THQ Brian Farrell has predicted that Sony and Microsoft can still catch Nintendo in the next-gen console sales battle. Speaking at the Morgan Stanley Technology Conference, Farrell said he expects the PS3 and Xbox 360 sales to increase as both platform holders drop their price, reports Kotaku. …

Casual development community experiences huge growth

MCV media partner Famistu has revealed the Japanese sales charts for February in a month when Nintendo titles Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Wii Fit claimed the top two spots, selling 1.3m and 309,000 units respectively. This brings Wii Fit’s lifetime sales to 1.5m since its release on December 1st. …

This morning, we reveal the deserving nominees for the MCV Excellence Awards 2008. To discover who has made the shortlist in the Retail category, click here. To see who has been nominated in the People & Industry category, click here. And to find out who is up for an Award …