GAMEfest
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UK GAMEfest goes hands-on with Modern Warfare 3 this September
Gamers in the UK will have the chance to play Modern Warfare 3 two months before its release at this year's GAMEfest. Hosted by "Europe's leading specialist videogame retailer," GAME, the event will run September 16-18 at the Birmingham National Exhibition Centre, and is open to GAME Reward Card holders only. Reward Cards cost £3, while tickets to GAMEfest are £10 for adults and £5 for children. GAMEfest takes place two weeks after the Los Angeles Call of Duty XP event, which will also feature hands-on time with Modern Warfare 3, including multiplayer and the full functionality of Call of Duty Elite.
Devs to get Project Natal tips at Gamefest in Feb.
With Project Natal on schedule for a 2010 arrival, it's no surprise that Microsoft's annual Gamefest conference will offer programming tracks designed to get developers up to speed on how best to design for and implement the technology in their Xbox 360 games. The tech summit, which runs from February 10 and 11 in Seattle will offer two types of Natal-themed sessions. The first, Project Natal Design, promises to help devs with "creating new ways to work, building showcase experiences, divining user intent, and designing gestures for UI versus game interactions." The second, Project Natal Technical, will "dive deep into gesture recognition, avatar retargeting, speech recognition, advanced raw stream processing, handling different player environments, and many other topics." Avatar re-what? Advanced raw stream huh? $100 says Microsoft just hands attendees Minority Report on DVD. [Via Gamasutra]
Microsoft's Gosen warns of 'thin line between gimmick and great gameplay'
Look, it's not that Microsoft's Xbox VP, David Gosen, dislikes the Wii and its parade of people-friendly peripherals. "What Nintendo have done with the Wii is truly fantastic – there is no question about it." No question at all -- but there is a but. "But I think sometimes there is a thin line between gimmick and great gameplay." And there's no question that said but refers to that thing that lets you play games with your butt.Speaking at a Gamefest UK keynote and later to the folks at Develop, Gosen admitted that while different interfaces, whether they be video cameras or plastic guitars, are important in bringing new players into the market, they need to serve a "truly game changing experience." Gosen went on to cite research which found Wii Fit players abandoned their "digital bathroom scales" quite quickly. "They are not good if they are gimmicks. There is a challenge for us to make sure that all new user interfaces are deep and are rewarding to the end user."And how do you do that, exactly? Gosen offers, "So we have to get the balance right, because what we are doing is bringing new consumers into the market for the first time in their lives sometimes – and we have to treat them with respect." Get the balance of game design right, huh? Sounds like the perfect Wii Fit game, no?
Xbox Live Arcade statistics galore from GameFest
Rough estimates are one thing, but hard data on Xbox Live arcade sales has been pretty hard to come by. Until now, that is. A pair of talks at Microsoft's XNA GameFest show just how successful Microsoft's foray into digital delivery has been.The first talk, by Microsoft casual games manager Marc Whitten, revealed that Microsoft expects 45 million individual game downloads on Xbox Live Arcade by the end of the year. Developers have made $30 million in revenue on XBLA games so far, Whitten said, with an average game returning 156 percent of the initial investment within a year. Try getting that from a mutual fund.That's fine for the business in general, but how are individual games doing. XBLA Platform Manager Mark Coates stepped in to help answer that question with a series of slides showing the most popular games available on the service. The data varies widely depending on what metric is used -- while the Ninja Turtles arcade game has the most individual users, Street Fighter II HD has made the most revenue and Uno, of all things has the most minutes spent playing. Coates' presentation also showed the longevity of XBLA games -- 65 percent of an average game's sales come after the first two months -- and the continued growth in download rates (see above graph)Remember, all these numbers come despite the fact that 30 percent of Xbox 360 owners don't even know that Xbox Live Arcade exists. Imagine how high the numbers could go if more users knew they didn't have to go to the store for their 360 games anymore.[Via GameSetWatch]Read - Marc Whitten on the XBLA businessRead - Mark Coates on XBLA game rankings
Dances With Keynotes
Ah, nerds trying to dance at the Gamefest 06 party. The perfect prelude to watching the keynote highlights and Major's face to face with Chris Satchell.
New 360 controller in the works?
Speaking at Gamefest, Microsoft hardware guru, Robert Walker Texas Ranger, spoke of a possible redesign of the 360 controller. This "advanced" -- and optional -- control would be in lieu of keyboard and mouse support -- something Microsoft still has no intention of doing. Thus, the new control would feature a redesigned right analog stick to allow for more precision, mouse-like movements. Naturally this controller would appeal mostly to gamers who prefer first person shooters and possibly RTS games. Also worth mentioning, Walker again brought up the possibility of Mircosoft copying Nintendo designing a motion sensing controller as well, since they seem to be hot stuff these days.So, what should Microsoft do to make their new pad more FPS friendly?[Via Xbox-Scene]
Microsoft to take a bite out of "consumables"
Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade and Marketplace have been hot topics this week, especially following the announcement of XNA Game Studio Express on Monday. Speaking at Gamefest 2006, Microsoft has further clarified some of their plans to enhance their online nexus of downloadable demos and managed microtransactions, most interestingly annoucing their intention to make a meal out of Marketplace "consumables." As enticing as the prospect of downloading a slice of lemon meringue pie might be, the experience is considerably dulled when you have to watch your in-game character devour it. Items that would be considered as consumables would be ones that you could purchase multiple times and whenever you needed them, and the example cited by the 1UP article points to this being a potentially ludicrous concept. Let's say your level 54 sorcerer (call him ... Tim) is in need of a Phoenix Down, but your party doesn't have enough gold to purchase one. Solution: rather than traipsing through a dungeon and obtaining items from slain beasties (why was that dinosaur carrying a potion?), you could be hitting the Xbox Live Marketplace and buying more gold.So, let's see if we understand how this goes. Use your real money to buy Microsoft's fake money to buy fake gold in order to buy fake potions from a fake in-game marketplace. Obviously, this is a rather extreme way of looking at consumables, but it certainly provides food for thought -- especially so should you consider the fact that by purchasing the game, you've ostensibly purchased the entire game world, marketplaces and overpriced inns included. Thankfully, just as with any marketplace transactions, it's still up to you to decide when something is worth the extra money and when it isn't (hint: equine items of protection).
Microsoft plans "community-powered arcade" with new XNA tools
Microsoft spoke with us on the phone last week concerning the events going on at their Gamefest event happening in Seattle today and tomorrow. Two and a half years ago they unveiled the XNA platform at the Game Developer's Conference -- which promised to ameliorate the increasing burden placed professional game developers -- and today they've announced XNA Game Studio Express -- a free variant of XNA for hobbyists to develop games on both the Windows and, for a fee, Xbox 360 platforms. A beta will be available August 30th as a free download for Windows XP development, while Xbox 360 functionality will be added into the final version, expected to be available this holiday for a $99 annual subscription.
