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

Empire Interactive is to resurrect the popular puzzle title, Pipe Mania on a broad variety of platforms. The original Pipe Mania was initially published in 1989, and achieved sales of over four million units worldwide. It appeared on a multitude of formats, including Amiga, Atari ST, Acorn Archimedes, Acorn Electron, …

Marvel Entertainment has agreed to end development of an MMO title it has been working on with Microsoft – reigniting rumours that the comic giant is making a unilateral move into video games. The company ended a similar deal with EA last month, which encouraged industry analysts to tell MCV …

French firm's 18th internal development team to eventually boast 300 staff and will start work in the summer

A prominent opinion piece in today’s Daily Telegraph has slammed Gordon Brown for employing Dr. Tanya Byron to carry out her investigation into the availability of violent video games. Telegraph writer Jim White largely defends the industry in his editorial – albeit with some questionable assumptions (‘[games] are overwhelmingly the …

In a further blow to Toshiba’s beleaguered HD-DVD hi-def disc format, giant US DVD rental service Netflix has announced that it to phase out the format this year in favour of Sony’s Blu-Ray format. Tech blog Engadget says the mail rental service cites the dissipating studio support of HD-DVD as …

Current industry darling Nintendo has had a storming year, with Wii overtaking 360’s UK installed base and DS hitting five million sales on these shores and 65 million worldwide. Speaking exclusively to MCV, Yarnton reveals Nintendo’s plans for the year ahead and insists that the platform holder is doing all …

Revitalised comments features go live on www.developmag.com

Take 2’s 2K Play label has signed up to handle the global release of pre-school products from Viacom’s Nickelodeon division. The three-year deal is an extension of a current agreement between the two firms, and will see DS, PS2 and Wii titles released across the Northern America, Asia and Europe. …

Portugese dev picks Emergent's tech for Wii title

EA's Salt Lake Studio and other internal teams working on game for Casual label