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

The chief executive of McDonald’s UK has hit out at video games for being a major cause of the childhood obesity crisis. Steve Easterbrook told The Times that the food and drinks industry shared responsibility for the issue with individuals and Government. But he made special mention of the popularity …

Postings on Japanese forum 2ch.net [via Kotaku ] are suggesting that staff at Sony Computer Entertainment Japan might be facing a job losses, or at least changes to employment contracts, over the next few days as the firm starts a possible restructure. Point your browser to MCV’s sister site Develop …

Take 2’s studio acquisition spree has continued with the news that the US publisher has acquired Illusion Softworks, the central European developer responsible for the Mafia franchise. To read the story in full, head over to the internet’s top destination for games development news, MCV’s sister site Develop.

Publisher Activision has confirmed that it is to release a solus version of Guitar Hero II for Xbox 360, Eurogamer reports. The idea is that with so many people buying the Guitar Hero III and guitar bundle currently riding high in the charts, there’s a lot of demand for extra …

After the huge critical and commercial success that was 2K Games’ Xbox 360 and PC hit BioShock, a second game is more or less a given – and the first rumours about the project are now emerging. CVG claims that it has heard that BioShock 2 will in fact be …

Mafia creator will be rebranded to 2K Czech

Hot on the heels of the news that PSP owners will soon be able to chat for free over the internet with the upcoming Skype for PSP package, it has now been confirmed that a PSP keyboard is also in the works. Gamespot reports that work is at an early …

What price have third party developers had to pay for Nintendo's success?

Reports suggest substantial changes are on the cards for Sonyâ??s Japanese developers

Following the recent news that Warner Bros is to drop its support of Toshiba’s HD-DVD hi-def movie format, fellow movie studio Paramount has denied that it is to do the same. Bloomberg reports that US newspapers are claiming that Paramount has a clause in its HD-DVD exclusivity contract that allows …