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

Microsoft’s Larry "Major Nelson" Hryb has published the 2007 bestseller list for Xbox Live Arcade, and the chart is dominated by well-known long-running games brands. The 1989 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game takes the crown, with the likes of Worms, Castlevanie, Bomberman and Sonic the Hedgehog taking other spots in …

DSGi may be forced to close as many as 200 of its UK stores after announcing that its profits were likely to be down as much as 50 million, a senior retail analyst has predicted. Tony Shiret, Credit Suisse’s senior retail analyst, predicted that the group’s new chief executive, John …

With all three main home consoles having just enjoyed their first clear Christmas on the market together, the first rumours of what could be planned for the next next-generation of consoles have seemingly begun. US games mag EGM claims that a secret first party Microsoft game was recently scrapped for …

Mobile media firm Handmark set to buy British smartphone and iPod game specialist

New game from Radical uses Neural-THX 7.1 Surround Sound

MCV media partner Enterbrain has released full year Japanese market figures for 2007 – showing a 25 per cent year-on-year leap in the hardware market, while overall software sales have dropped by one per cent compared to 2006. Japan’s total hardware and software market amounted to a whopping 687.66 billion …

IGN claims that Rockstar’s next-gen re-working of its once controversial free-roaming school-based romp Bully: Scholarship Edition will be released on Xbox 360 and Wii on March 7th in Europe. This new edition will include the original game in its entirety along with a host of extras including eight new missions, …

Another publishing superstar has climbed aboard the Steam bandwagon with news that Rockstar is to offer its PC catalogue on Valve’s ever-growing downloads service. Ten games are available to buy online now – GTA, GTA2, GTA3, GTA Vice City, GTA San Andreas, Midnight Club II, Max Payne, Max Payne 2, …

The People reports that Prince William is struggling to find time to play the Wii he received for Christmas recently – as his grandmother, who is the Queen incidentally, is apparently hooked” on the machine. The paper quotes a Sandringham source as saying: "When she saw William playing a game …

Following the news that Warner is to cease production of HD-DVD movies and instead exclusively support Sony’s rival Blu-Ray format, last night’s CES 2008 North American HD-DVD Promotion Group conference was cancelled. A statement from the body read: "Based on the timing of the Warner Home Video announcement today, we …