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

As well as the previously touted retro download offering Xbox Originals that will arrive alongside Microsoft’s Autumn Xbox 360 Dashboard Update tomorrow, the platform holder has now outlined a near complete line-up of new features that will be available to console owners from tomorrow. The biggest announcement is the arrival …

Following the news of Vivendi’s surprise purchase of a majority stake in former rival Activision , Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime has assured the company’s MMO fans that the deal will have no impact on the future of its globally popular World of Warcraft. In an interview with 1UP, Morhaime stated: …

Chris Dring has joined MCV as editorial assistant this week in a further expansion of the magazine’s resources. He will now be the industry’s first port of call for release schedules, appointments and product news, and joins from his role at Partnertrans as a QA tester. Dring boasts a strong …

Former Empire Europe general manager David Pain has been appointed to head up Blackbean Games’ head office in Milan. Pain – who has also worked as the sales and marketing director for Virgin UK – takes up the role with immediate effect. His first task will be to oversee the …

Activision, which yesterday became the newly-crowned leading global games publisher follwoing its merger with Vivendi , has stated that it is brimming with confidence going into the annual battle for the Christmas number one – with Call of Duty 4 spearheading its efforts. The fourth iteration of the high profile …

Publisher Vivendi has upped sticks and moved to a bigger premises in Marlow as the company looks to expand its UK operations. The move has happened just at the unexpected confirmation has emrged that Vivendi has merged with former publishing rival Activision to form the world’s largest third party publisher …

Opening keynote to French conference provides Crysis postmortem and design lessons

Busy times for UK independent Kuju – just days after it’s Godalming team moved into a new studio and rebranded , the firm has opened another studio in Surrey, called NiK NaK. To read the full story, head over to MCV’s sister site Develop.

NiK NaK plans to create games for the six to 12 year old audience

Two-day mobile event leads into main GDC