MTV is to  to develop titles based on its properties, with a
$500 million (£250m) investment, Reuters reports.
The media giant has previously had success with game-related sites such as Xfire and GameTrailers.com, as well as in the casual games sector. MTV bought Guitar Hero developer Harmonix last September for $175 million, and is gearing up [...]

ideos from the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival are now available onlineGamer TV has produced a series of online videos from the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival 07.
The videos, which can be found at www.esport.tv, will include walkthroughs of Clive Barker’s Jericho and Race Driver: Create and Race, alongside new footage of Kane and Lynch, Haze and [...]

Senior VP of Global Brand Management at Activision Will Kassoy has admitted that sales through digital distribution have not taken off as the publisher expected.
In an interview with Gamedaily.biz, Kassoy said that despite the fast-extrapolating success of downloadable content for games, boxed titles are still swamping digital sales.
“I think episodic content hasn’t proven as successful [...]

Hot Milky Drink is a blog, mostly, about games and education, run by Derek Robertson. This post is a fairly typical worry about games:
I appreciate that the game is a 16+ and that it is aimed at young and older adults and that in general people are not stupid but…I can’t help feeling that games [...]

Yves Guillemot speaking at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival today:
To make sure we can make blockbuster products we are recruiting about 500 people are year, and plan to go to 600 to 900 in the next few years. We can’t recruit this many people, so we have to develop them. We have a campus in [...]

Earlier this week a rumor broke that the BBC were going to announce a major move into games at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival. It was quickly refuted:
“The presentation will not reveal a major move into the games industry and is in fact just reflective of the way in which various sectors of the entertainment [...]

Global economic pressure on the UK games industry is mounting. Germany is now trying to tempt UK development into relocating to Leipzig:
 Backed by funds from the city itself and promising lucrative networking opportunities with Central and Eastern Europe, Game Developers Business Centre Europe (GDBC) is owned by Leipziger Messe – the organisers of the Game [...]

German game development network 10tacle has bought a 29% stake in UK independent Climax. It’s part of a planned partnership, and 10tacle are considering drawing Climax even further into their business. Work planned includes a virtual world for MTV:
Together, Climax and 10tacle will be working on two action and fantasy titles and then also work [...]

This interview with Quantic Dreams passed us by in the run up to the Develop Conference, but it’s worth reading. They have plenty to say about games maturity as a medium:
Commented Cage: “Our industry is now ready to reach a more grown-up and wider audience. We will continue to produce games for teenagers, but not [...]

NMA has a couple of interesting news items on brands and virtual worlds today. Unfortunately, they’re locked up behind a paywall, so I’m rolling them into one entry with excerpts.
Firstly, it’s been revealed within the last week that Diesel and Nike are both setting up a presence in PlayStation Home. From the print edition:
According to [...]