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

Konami has secured the services of Michael Owen to appear on the box of Pro Evolution Soccer 2008, as well as other promotional materials. The Newcastle and England striker joins Manchester United and Portugal winger Cristiano Ronaldo as part of the marketing campaign for the title. Securing Michael Owen is …

Nickelodeon is launching into the games business, with a $100m warchest earmarked by the Viacom-owned kids TV network to grab a slice of the fast-growing casual sector. According to Marketing Week, Nickelodeon is planning a series of multiplayer games, virtual online worlds and new subscription services. These include myNogging, a …

It could, therefore, have tried to steal the show with an orgiastic outpouring of announcements and forecasts, but, quite frankly, it didn’t. Instead the tone was set by the conference’s lead-off speaker, SCEA boss Jack Tretton. This is not a man from the PT Barnum lineage. He’s a reluctant front …

Like many of the revelations at the show however, these ‘announcements’ pretty much just confirmed what we already knew or suspected. For a start, why wouldn’t he be happy? The DS and the Wii are, the biggest selling consoles in the world right now. And both have been at the …

He hammered home the claim with some pretty conclusive NPD retail tracking data. The headline figure was a cumulative US installed base of 5.6m units, but perhaps more significant were the numbers since PlayStation 3 and Wii launched. Since then, in the States, Wii has just led the way with …

Retail colossus Asda has taken a swipe at Tesco’s aggressive range of Price Check ads – insisting that the retailer is on the offensive in order to cover up poor sales. Tesco has been on the front foot for the last few weeks, with a comprehensive cross-media blitz suggesting that …

Develop presents a special investigation into a much-ignored area of games development

The usual US suspects may have managed to bring a touch of razzmatazz to this year’s downsized E3 – but former attendees on this side of the Atlantic have poured scorn on the UK being ‘frozen out’ of the expo. And domestic retailers and publishers have warned that the Leipzig …

Following the recall of Mario Party 8 just a day after it was released in the UK, Nintendo has promised retailers it is working as quickly as it can to get it back on the shelves. The Wii title was withdrawn from the shelves after the word ‘spastic’ was discovered …

Microsoft has become the first platform holder to endorse the new online age labelling system from the Interactive Software Federation (ISFE), PEGI Online. The site will work in conjunction with the current Pan European Game Information (PEGI) system by offering age-rating labels and descriptions of content – and helping parents …