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

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

Character animation pipeline tools arenâ??t the most glamorous but the volume requirement of games means theyâ??re becoming indispensableâ?¦

Ubisoft Montreal has said that the PS3’s unique architecture has proved a good fit for the technology behind its upcoming Far Cry 2 – though says that it has taken a lot of effort to get used to the machine. "We were somewhat worried by some of the reported high …

IGN reports that the former head of EA Chicago, Kudo Tsunoda, has been appointed by Microsoft to head up its Game Studios Gears of War team as thoughts turn to the follow up to its smash-hit 360 and PC title. Microsoft Game Studio’s Shane Kim said of the news: "I’m …