Manchester to become the UK's video game capital once again?

Tiga has been pushing for more parliamentary interest in the British computer and video game industry for quite a while now, and it appears to be making some headway.

As part of its Digital Britain report the government has announced plans to open a 'Usability Centre for Video Games' to be situated alongside the new BBC headquarters in Salford Quays, Manchester.

The purpose of the centre is to offer 'skills and training as a national resource to meet the industry's needs'. Exactly what form this centre, or the services it'll provide, will be is unclear at the moment (and probably hasn't even been decided), and there was enough political waffle attached to the proposal to suggest it could be a long while before anything actually happens.

But the choice of venue is quite important to the region. The M62 corridor played host to the independent developer boom of the 1980s, when home computing took off at an exponential rate - a period mirrored quite closely with the explosion of small iPhone developers springing up around the country.