MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
Changes to the cost of in-game items in EA’s online-only free-to-play shooter Battlefield Heroes have been met poorly by the title’s community, with claims that it is now almost impossible to compete with rival players without spending real-world cash on the game. Anyone is able to download the free Battlefield …
Read More »MW2 dev costs put at $40-50m
Infinity Ward prised as much as $50 million from Activision’s budget to develop Modern Warfare 2, reports suggest. That figure is thought to be far less than Infinity Ward had initially been offered. The $40-50 million that Infinity Ward spent – a number quoted by anonymous sources in an LA …
Read More »Asda admits to selling below cost
The truth is out: Supermarkets lose money on the triple-A titles on which they choose to slash prices. That’s according to Asda games category manager Duncan Cross, who this week lifted the lid on the supermarket’s Q4 price cuts – and tackled the concerns of the indies that have crammed …
Read More »PS3 manufacturing cost down 70%
The predictions have been going for over two years and continue to this day, but a new admission from Sony suggests that the way might at last have been paved for a price cut on its PS3 console some time this year. The conclusion comes from a recent confirmation from …
Read More »7m Brits download illegally
The Strategic Advisory Board for Intellectual Property claims that seven million UK residents have illegally downloaded files from the internet in the last 12 months, with the cumulative value of the stolen material estimated to be 120bn. It adds that 1.3m people use a file-sharing network at least once a …
Read More »41% of all PC software is pirated
A new study has claimed that a remarkable 41 per cent of all software installations on PC last year were based on illegally pirated copies – a figure which amounts to a market value of $53bn. The global piracy rate in 2007 was pegged at 38 per cent, but successes …
Read More »Xbox Live 1 vs 100 to be free for Gold members
Having missed its initial launch window alongside Microsoft’s revamped New Xbox Experience dashboard update, details are now starting to trickle through regarding intriguing online console quiz title 1 vs 100. Chiefly, Microsoft has confirmed that 1 vs 100 will be free to every Gold member of its Xbox Liver service. …
Read More »Wii manufacturing costs have dropped 45% since launch
A global business analyst at Credit Suisse has claimed that the cost of manufacturing a Wii console has dropped by 45 per cent since the system launched in 2006. Furthermore, Kotaku reports that the analyst believes these drops will pave the way for a Wii price drop later this year …
Read More »Now Sony voices OnLive scepticism
Sony has become the second platform holder to voice its doubts about the ambitious proposals outlined by streaming games service OnLive. Yesterday, Nintendo’s American boss Reggie Fils-Aime questioned where OnLive would source the kind of killer-games that has seen Nintendo perform so strongly in recent times. Now SCEA’s director of …
Read More »Sony cuts cost of developing for PS3
Sony has lowered the price of PlayStation 3 development kits and introduced new tools at GDC this week New dev kit models are available for developers of PS3 titles around the world – Reference Tool models DECR-1400A for North America costs $2,000 and the Europe/PAL territories version is €1,700. DECR-1400J …
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