MCV/DEVELOP News, events, research and jobs from the games industry
In a surprise admission, the boss of Microsoft Game Studios Phil Spencer has claimed that the platform holder has lost its way” with the smash hit Halo franchise. The statement comes as Bungie makes an emotional farewell to fans, having officially stepped away from the series that it helped make …
Read More »Microsoft confident of Japanese Kinect sales boost
Microsoft believes a new wave of locally developed Kinect titles will help boost sales of the peripheral in Japan. Earlier this week, the platform holder’s Japanese Xbox 360 general manager Takashi Sensui admitted that the console’s motion-sensing camera did not met expectations at launch in the region, according to Andriasang. …
Read More »Mad Catz to publish 360 games
Peripherals manufacturer Mad Catz has signed a publishing agreement with Microsoft to produce games for Xbox 360. The news comes following the firm’s opening of in-house developer ThunderHawk Studios which is working on a flight simulator game. Other details on its first Xbox 360 games have not yet been revealed. …
Read More »Microsoft Unleashes XNA Game Studio Express
Based on the Visual C# 2005 Express Edition and .NET Compact framework, XNA Game Studio Express allows anyone with a Windows PC to develop a game, which can then be shared to other creators via the web or an Xbox 360-backed online Creators Club. Plus, Microsoft is launching a game …
Read More »Xbox marketing manager joins brand agency
Brand agency Splendid, perhaps best known most recently for its Smirnoff Nightclub Exchange Project campaign, has hired former Xbox brand marketing manager Alex Weller. Weller was part of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 launch team and was part of the successful Kinect UK launch team. We are absolutely delighted to have Alex …
Read More »Kinect retargeting
NaturalMotion's head of research Joss Knight looks at retargeting from a player tracked in Kinect
Read More »Xbox 360 cloud saving goes live
Mirroring the way it quietly announced the service last month, Microsoft has quietly gone ahead and activated some of its planned Xbox Live cloud save functionality. Pocket-Lint reports that certain unspecified Xbox Live Arcade titles will now allow users to to download and resume saved games from any console. It …
Read More »Sky Player gets Xbox rebranding
Though it will make little difference to users of the service, Microsoft has confirmed that as of tomorrow (July 6th) the Xbox 360 Sky Player will be rebranded as Sky Go. Users will have to accept new T&Cs, though all other conditions remains the same – users must have a …
Read More »Crytek almost brought in-house by MS
Considered making Crysis 2 developer an official first party studio
Read More »MS nearly brought Crytek in-house
Xbox 360 platform holder Microsoft has admitted that it at one stage considered making German developer Crytek one of its first party developers. The studio rose to fame following its 2004 release Far Cry. This was followed by powerhouse PC release Crysis in 2007, expansion Crysis Warhead in 2008 and …
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