michael-kelbaugh
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3DS, Donkey Kong Country Returns, Bleszinski talks at GDC
We're guessing Satoru Iwata will talk about the 3DS during his Game Developers Conference keynote. But it's even safer to assume that Nintendo's Hideki Konno will mention the system during his newly-announced GDC talk, called "The Development Process of the Nintendo 3DS". Konno works as producer for Nintendo hardware, and is also producing Nintendogs + Cats, so he should have at least a passing familiarity with the hardware. A third high-profile Nintendo talk has also been announced: Nintendo's Kensuke Tanabe and Retro Studios' Michael Kelbaugh and Bryan Walker will present "We Hate You: Why Donkey Kong Country Returns was So Hard". Okay, it's actually called "Donkey Kong: Swinging Across Oceans" and it's about developing the game across continents. GDC also announced one more marquee presentation: Cliff Bleszinski's "Industry Lessons Learned and Applying Them to the Road Ahead", a wide-ranging talk about "Bleszinski's thoughts on AAA gaming, social gaming, and the connected future" as well as the importance of PR and marketing to game design.
The road to corruption: Retro Studios and the making of Metroid Prime
As gamers, our focus is often on playing games and not the subtleties that go on behind the scenes. If we only knew about all those details, though, we might be shocked to find out how something like the Metroid Prime series almost never came to be.Retro Studios president and CEO Michael Kelbaugh recently talked about the Prime arc at the 2007 Montreal Games Summit. In the conference, he explained the pressures of having his (at that time) rookie studio pick up such an important franchise, and how Miyamoto was influential in taking the series from third person to first person.
