MTV Networks plans to spend more than $500 million (£250m) on game development, 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. Apparently 47 per cent of MTV’s audience are video game players.

MTV bought Guitar Hero developer Harmonix last September for $175 million, and is gearing up to release the hotly anticipated Rock Band before the end of the year.

“As we take our brands narrow and deep to serve our targeted, niche audiences, we’re putting well over $500 million behind building our games business across all of the brands in our portfolio,” said Judy McGrath, MTV Chairman and CEO.



She added: “I’d like to see more game applications on some of our current big brands across the music groups. Maybe Rock Band will be the next MTV… who knows?”