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Sony's PlayStation Eye to gain facial recognition capabilities
It was almost two weeks ago that we first heard about the patent for Sony's PlayStation Eye-powered object motion detection, and now the company's announcing facial recognition for the console. According to Gamasutra, Kish Hirani, SCEE's Head of Developer Services, said that the facial recognition software would "detect gender and even the age of the face, separate facial features such as the nose, eyes and ears, and even detect whether you're smiling or not." This new gear will also work with the Sony Motion Controller, with the camera tracking X, Y and Z motion by using the glowing ball. Speaking at the Develop Conference in Brighton, Hirani stressed that companies won't need to develop their own tech to work with the new controllers. "If you are working with the PlayStation Eye and think there is some new tech you're going to have to develop for the motion controllers, just get in touch with us. We have a wealth of libraries available, and the chances are you won't have to develop any technology yourself." You hear that, guys? get to work![Via SlashGear]
LittleBigPlanet, Media Molecule sweep Develop Awards
We piled our accolades atop LittleBigPlanet back in January -- now, nearly six months later, the Develop Industry Excellence Awards are doing the same thing. LBP, and the minds at Media Molecule who created it, won all five awards they were nominated for: Best New Studio, Best Independent Developer, Best New IP and Achievements in Visual Arts and Technical Innovation.Other big winners included Rockstar (both Leeds and North took home one award each) and Phil Harrison, who was bestowed the Development Legend Award, and finally given the Shinest Head in Europe Award. A full list of the winners is listed after the break.
Dave Perry talks Gaikai: 'Gamestop already hate me'
Speaking at the Develop conference currently taking place in the UK, Gaikai's Dave Perry told Edge that the folks at video game retailer GameStop "already hate" him. "I've made so much money from their store [GameStop], so I can't be mean to them about that," he apologetically added, though he said he believes the industry is being pushed to digital distribution by GameStop's used game business model."I can be mean about their [GameStop's] used game policy, because they're pushing the industry to digital distribution perhaps faster than it would have gone," he responded, when asked how retail is reacting to his dark magic-powered Gaikai service. He doesn't necessarily see brick-and-mortar retail as his company's biggest hurdle though, saying, unsurprisingly, it's the smoke money. "We need to find a strategic partner who will add value ... somebody that wants to invest and can actually add something ... we want to find somebody who will really move the needle." Wait a minute -- Gaikai involves needles? Forget it!
PSN guarded by 'velvet rope,' Relentless dev says
Creative director David Amor of Relentless Software (Buzz! and the newly announced Blue Toad Murder Files) didn't have a bad word to say about Sony or PSN during his and development director Andrew Eades' interview with GamesIndustry.biz. "We're really happy with our relationship with Sony. So when starting this self publishing project we wanted to see their blessing on it and we're glad they've been supportive. I wouldn't want to do something that jeopardizes a good thing," Amor said. As a result, the company has "no immediate plans" to start developing for other devices. Having said that, however, Amor feels that the iPhone is a "very interesting platform," but lacks the level of quality control standards that PSN adheres to. "There's something of a velvet rope around PlayStation Network that I think keeps the quality level high." While we agree for the most part (there are exceptions), we're intrigued to see whether Sony can maintain this quality level while simultaneously expanding the PSN developer base -- particularly when it comes to PSP Go.
Gaikai's David Perry on solving latency issues with streaming games to your browser
Gaikai is a company we've taken note of in the past few months, one that aims to eliminate hardware barriers to gaming -- including MMOs like World of Warcraft and EVE Online -- by streaming games to your browser via their "Streaming Worlds" technology. Despite what Gaikai has said and demonstrated thus far, their technology -- which essentially turns games into an interactive video stream -- has been met with skepticism. This is not surprising. How they'll handle latency issues has been debated at length in our own comments at Massively and pretty much everywhere else online that Gaikai is mentioned. A recent interview with Gaikai's David Perry sheds a little more light on how they aim to deliver on smooth game performance. Perry spoke with Develop writer Rob Crossley and says, "No one has ever tried to solve the issue in the way we are."
Peek issues call for developers, yearns to build Linux-infused model
Peek always has been a company for the people, with its suits sitting down late last year to listen intently to input from users regarding hacks and tweaks. Now, the outfit's looking for a bona fide Linux guru, someone who could get Linux running on the Peek's ARM7 processor and look suave doing it. The kicker? Should you succeed (and impress), you could score a "mini-consulting gig" with the top brass at Peek, and your work could one day revolutionize the fabled email-only handheld. Seriously, there's nothing but fear and debilitating hesitation stopping you, so once you're over that, hit the read link and get to work.[Via SlashGear]
Bleszinski sees RPGs as key to the shooter's future
Look, we know, alright? Cliff "Not CliffyB" Bleszinski has a lot to say, and as such, he ends up in the headlines a bit more than anyone could expect. But how can we resist when he says such interesting stuff, like what he said during a recent interview with Develop. He dropped some pretty serious hints about the future of shooters -- and in turn, his own franchise, Gears of War. "I had a conversation with Harvey Smith – one of the lead designers on Deus Ex – and said to him the future of shooters is RPGs," the Cliffster said during the interview. "He said he completely agreed." So, Deus Ex of War with RPG elements confirmed? Not quite. Bleszinski made sure to mention immediately afterward, "One could wean that from the comments I made earlier about the future of shooters is RPGs and see where things are going with us. It depends on where things go." Here's hoping "things go" right back to work on the game and less of the gum flapping! (Just joshin' ya, Cliffy. We still love you.)
Cliff Bleszinski explains why there are so many bald space marines
If you think Unreal Engine 3 games feature too much gray and brown, laden with "pillars and girders," all being stomped around on by bald space marines, Cliff "Young Clifford" Bleszinski wants you to blame the tech. Speaking with Develop recently, the man that birthed Marcus Fenix said, "The technology of this generation just happens to be very good at rendering metals and stones and dramatic lighting." He argues that "translucent effects" are much harder to pull of with the technology given and as such, "the tech is good at showing off armor and it's not that good at doing hair ... that's why we have bald space marines."Though we'd argue that there are lots of bald men in our lives who happen to not be space marines -- CheapyD and Dr. Manhattan prime among them -- we can appreciate how Marcus Fenix may be more equipped to take down the Locust than an omnipotent blue man. Wait a minute! Interestingly, Bleszinski also notes during the interview that he's got "like five projects going on right now" -- we're counting Shadow Complex and another (still unannounced) Gears of War, which leaves three unannounced projects? Something is afoot at Epic Games. And it almost certainly involves bald space marines.
Sony to talk 'a lot more' about motion controller at Develop Conference
According to the official programme for this year's Develop Conference (a UK soiree for game devs), the recently totally confirmed PlayStation Motion Controller will be a highlight of a keynote titled "PlayStation: Cutting Edge Technologies." Specifically, attendees are being told to "expect to hear a lot more about the new PS3 controller shown at E3, together with vision processing and advanced graphics techniques in the PS3 libraries" during a presentation by SCEE staff.The keynote description also makes mention of "several real-world examples of such techniques as used in recent and soon to be released PS3 and PSP titles from both Sony Computer Entertainment first party and external developers," but don't take that to mean "OMG actual games using motion control;" it's referring to the aforementioned "adavanced graphics techniques," which should still be pretty ... and pretty ace. The conference runs July 14 through 16 in Brighton.
Blizzard believes fans make their games successful
With E3 2009 officially underway, it's a great time for devs and CEOs to chat about their games and Blizzard's very own Mike Morhaime has been talking about the company's position in the MMO market with Develop. He believes that Blizzard is uniquely positioned within the industry and that it's all about the players:"The story behind us is the passionate community that has grown up around our games," he explains during the interview. "Our commitment to quality has helped us grow a global audience that has grown with every release. While our competitors will be trying to overcome these challenges to grow their brands, we're already a major player there. None have achieved the same level of online growth as World of Warcraft. We're able to leverage huge investments in new content across the world's largest MMO subscriber base."
Industry pipes up on lack of overtime pay from crunch time
Just over a month ago, Joystiq talked to Epic Games' Mike Capps about crunch times in game development cycles and how many hours his employees are expected to work throughout the development of a game. Interestingly, Develop put the question of crunch time (among other things) to "over 350 industry professionals" via a poll and found that nearly 98 percent of respondents received no overtime pay for crunch work.When we spoke with Capps, he pointed out that, for his company, crunch isn't a matter of force but that employees understand its necessity. "Our guys vote on how they want to crunch and last time they chose having weekends off ... I had one or two that were, wow that went too long, we had a rough time, we made some mistakes in planning but that's not to say that crunching is the wrong thing to do," Capps told us. He also noted that while crunch can hurt, employees (at least at Epic) are able to take a few weeks off between projects after a crunch so as to recharge, saying, "If you scoop someone off the front lines of Afghanistan and fly them to Iraq and you put them back out and you keep doing it, performance is going to suffer." It seems to us that, like most things in life, generalizing -- for instance, about the gaming industry as a whole -- doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 98 percent of those polled may not receive overtime for crunching on a project, but they may very well receive large bonuses after the product ships, or a long vacation, or a variety of other incentives. One thing's for sure: 100 percent of Joystiq writers make no overtime pay. [Image credit]
Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard discusses future of free-to-play on consoles
The free-to-play MMO business model as it presently stands in North America and Europe is still strides behind what exists in Asia, but F2P is clearly making inroads in the West. What's less clear is how the free-to-play business model will evolve in the coming years. We've come across an interview with Jagex CEO Mark Gerhard conducted by Rob Crossley for Develop, which points to a few directions that free-to-play may take. It's safe to say Gerhard knows a fair amount about the state of free-to-play games; RuneScape boasts millions of players and is a major success story with this business model. Gerhard specifically highlights his views on bringing free-to-play MMOs to consoles. Technological hurdles aside, Gerhard focuses on the business model applied to consoles and the industry's resistance to the concept of truly free-to-play titles appearing on Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3. You can read up about F2P meeting console MMOs in the Develop interview with Jagex's Mark Gerhard.
Some Japanese companies not attending E3 over Swine Flu concerns
No, we can't believe we just wrote that headline either. And according to scattered reports (and a variety of phone calls we made this afternoon), it's the unfortunate truth: Some Japanese developers and producers are canceling their trips to E3 2009 due to Swine Flu worries. Capcom's Keiji Inafune and his game, Dead Rising 2, will both be missing. (This isn't the first time Inafune is canceling a trip.) Develop is also reporting that Square Enix and Koei will be canceling some employees' flights, with the Kingdom Hearts team and "an unspecified number of [Koei's] Japanese employees" taking the hit.We asked Tecmo if there would be a change in its lineup at E3, to which a company rep assured, "No. Our content is still scheduled to be there and everything on the show floor, if not by the staff that's scheduled to fly in from Japan, it'll be demonstrated by our own staff from the US office." Tecmo also said producers for its upcoming lineup are still scheduled to appear alongside their titles. "As of today, we've been told our producers will still be in attendance." Konami declined comment as of press time and the ESA (E3's governing body and financial supporter) has yet to respond to our inquiries. As it stands, it looks like we'll be waiting 'til PAX 2009 or even the Tokyo Game Show to get our hands on Dead Rising 2.
Blizzard bumps Nintendo off #1 spot on Develop's top 100 studios list
Develop Magazine releases a list every year of the 100 most bankable game studios in the world, known as the Develop 100. The list for 2009 has just gone out, and guess who has moved up in the world? Going from #47 last year all the way to the top this year is Blizzard Entertainment -- you know, those chaps that are responsible for World of Warcraft, among other things. Fellow money-printing outfit Nintendo was relegated to second place due to this mighty ascension. Our sister-site WoW Insider did a bit of digging to find out why Blizzard jumped so much in a single year. It seems to be due to a few things combined; Blizzard's Activision merger, the release of Wrath of the Lich King, and a change in the way Develop is calculating their figures, particularly in relation to MMOs. Here's a summary of the judging standards found on the Develop 100 page:Develop 100 ranks the world's most bankable games development studios based on a variety of key criteria including sales data, critical success and industry standing.Things get a bit wonky when it comes to sales data and MMOs, due to significant revenue coming from subscriptions and online purchases instead of retail sales. WotLK's release and resulting retail sales undoubtedly had a great deal to do with Blizzard's new number one standing, and we wonder how old Blizz' would have fared on the Develop 100 without a new box to put on store shelves. Regardless, they're the champions for 2009. For those interested, the top 5 in order are: Blizzard Entertainment, Nintendo, Rockstar North, EA Canada, and Capcom.
Game investor consultant says budgets are tightening for VCs
We here at Joystiq have a long history of making unsubstantiated claims about games we're absolutely, 100 percent, without a doubt not making. Unfortunately though, it seems that Joystiq Publishing™ is going to have to close its doors, as Develop's Nick Gibson tells us that fewer and fewer venture capitalists are shelling out dough on fledgling developers these days. More specifically, he says, "in the last four or five months there has been a collapse in venture capital," meaning less money is out there for small developers and publishers -- not to mention new development companies. The problem with this, he argues, is that innovation will be stifled (or at very least slowed) as funding drops out for potentially "risky" games. "There will be considerably fewer start-ups able to pick up the innovation baton and continue to evolve the market," he says. We're hoping that the lack of money forces big publishers to reconsider wasteful spending and instead focus on making the best possible games they can with the resources alotted. We're also hoping for unicorns to land on the moon and find the sattelite's creamy center actually full of an unlimited energy source. So there's that!
Black Rock dev says racing genre is 'dying out,' Split/Second to give a 'kick start'
Though we're inclined to point out the massively successful Burnout Paradise to Black Rock Studios head Tony Beckwith and Split/Second director Nick Baynes, the two believe "the racing genre is, in many respects, dying out." But alas, friends! There is hope yet! Speaking with Develop recently, the two claim their studio's upcoming game Split/Second will help to turn that all around. "We're all fans of street racing here, but as a genre it is relatively stale -- the evolution is only coming from how you customize cars, which can only serve to remove you from the action – I think Split/Second will do the opposite," Baynes says, referencing the game's (familiar) HUD-less design. Based on these comments, we're not so sure that the folks at Black Rock have been paying too much attention to the racing genre, though we will certainly admit to Split/Second looking fantastic. We'll just have to wait and see what the game does to substantiate the two's claims when the game arrives in "early 2010."
Epic and Metaboli ink deal, Unreal series heading to GameTap
Epic Games, developer of the Gears of War series and everyone's favorite jackrabbit franchise, has apparently signed a deal with Metaboli, the European "partner" to digital download services GameTap and Games Planet, reports Develop. The contract solidifies a three-year partnership between Metaboli and Epic, with Epic bringing its entire Unreal series to the table. It remains unclear whether or not Epic will bring other franchises from its stable to the services but if the ailing economy dictates anything, it's the likelihood of folks selling what they can wherever they can. We contacted Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games, for comment and he told us it's, "Too early to know." It's a certainty we won't see the aforementioned Gears of War franchise though as it's handled by Microsoft. Rein told us, "Microsoft handles Gears of War PC distribution so that would be their deal." Sorry folks!
Big huge layoffs at Big Huge Games
THQ-owned Big Huge Games has reportedly laid off a "huge number" of employees, an unnamed source told Develop this morning. Reports less than two weeks ago had THQ selling Big Huge Games unless it found a buyer quickly. According to THQ spokesperson Julie MacMedan, THQ was looking for a buyer (at the time) to pick up Big Huge in the "near future." Considering the predicted 50 percent chance of survival of THQ, selling the Catan and Rise of Nations developer may be a last ditch endurance effort on the part of THQ that hasn't gone through, thus resulting in the job cuts.We asked THQ for a statement regarding the alleged layoffs and Ms. MacMedan responded this evening, saying, "We continue to pursue a sale of Big Huge Games. Yesterday, some of the staff were notified that they were not going to be part of the future direction of the studio. We are not providing exact headcounts at this time." Little else is known at this time, though we've put in word to Big Huge Games for further comment and we'll update as news comes in.
Molyneux: 'The industry is growing up,' wants to stay out later on weekends
Peter Molyneux has grown up. In fact, he told Develop this past week that he believes the whole industry has matured. "We're growing up ... when I first started in this industry we were like six year-olds," Molyneaux says, speaking to the enormous development team sizes for games like Lionhead Studios' most recent foray, Fable II, and lamenting the industry's past arrogance towards structure of, well, any kind. "My feeling is that if you're making mistakes when you've got 100 people, that's a really big mistake," Molyneux says, adding, "You'd better make sure that you're making the mistakes when you're a ten or 20 person team; If you're doing that with 100 people, you are throwing millions of pounds down the toilet."That being said, his position on what Lionhead Studios is doing other than Fable-related properties remains ... loose ... to say the least. "There are lots of things I would like to show you now; Within ten feet of you right now is possibly the most exciting thing I've ever seen," Molyneux teased Develop. What could it be?! We may never know, nor may you, as Molyneux remains surprisingly coy in his description. Lionhead has confirmed work on more Fable II DLC, so for the time being, we'll just have to be content with that.
New add-on policy makes selling add-ons against the rules
There is a new UI add-on development policy that has been recently released by Blizzard (we think today, however there is no time-stamp on the document). The policy lists a few standard things we'd expect from add-ons, such as not containing offensive material, not negatively impacting World of Warcraft realms or other players, and requiring add-ons to abide by the WoW Terms of Use and EULA. However there's more.According to the policy, add-ons must be free of charge, may not solicit donations, and their code must be completely visible. This means some leveling mods that charge for their use are now against the rules. Essentially if you develop a mod it has to be released and distributed for free – no charge is acceptable. And for those thinking "well, the developer could just charge for the download service then." Not true. The complete statement after the break.
