GDC 2010
Latest
Naughty Dog wants to half-tuck Uncharted into the PSP
Naughty Dog's co-president Evan Wells is definitely interested in having people tuck Nathan Drake -- either halfway or all the way -- into their pockets and visit the world of Uncharted whenever they want to. He feels that there are a lot of stories to tell in that world, and that the PSP would be the perfect platform for it. Just imagine Uncharted: Sully's Adventure where you can wheel and deal in the black market, or Uncharted: Elena on Assignment where you're chasing a dangerous news story. Scoop! "I think it would be fantastic to see the game (move) onto a handheld system," Wells told us. "Each one of the episodes is sort of like a standalone thing and I think we could do that pretty easily. If we can find a partner to work with, I'd love to do that ... we definitely wouldn't do it ourselves. We're trying to just focus on the PS3 technology and platform right now." He added, laughing, "But, if we can't find a partner, then maybe we're going to have to find a budget ourselves." Laugh if you will, Wells. You're just toying with our heartstrings is all. We'd love to see Nathan Drake on our PSP. Make it happen. We have Ready at Dawn's phone number if you need it.
Joystiq live at the IGF/GDC Awards 2010
Update: Uncharted 2 wins big (again) at the Game Developers Choice Awards, and Pocketwatch Games' Monaco takes home the IGF Awards' Seumas McNally Prize. A complete list of winners is posted after the break, followed by our liveblog coverage.
Disney: Split/Second coming to PC retail and digital distribution (plus: new GDC trailers!)
Earlier today, we noticed a report over on That Video Game Blog that stated Black Rock's upcoming racer, Split/Second, would only be available on the PC as "a limited online release." Turns out, that isn't the case, as a Disney spokesperson has confirmed to Joystiq that the game will be available on the PC both via retail and digital distribution on May 18, alongside its console cousins. When questioned about which digital distribution services the game would release on, Disney couldn't say. So, as a peace offering, we were given a pair of new trailers: the first you can see above this chunk of text, while you'll need to click past the break for the other. We know, we push you guys too hard!
GDC: MySpace making a push into games, hoping it'll be as popular as music
While we've yet to meet those amongst you reppin' Farmville and swearing allegiance to Facebook, we worry that today's announcement of MySpace making a stronger push into the casual gaming market may stir those folks from their dismal, musty resting places. Alongside a revamped and relaunched gaming section on the site (the "MySpace Games Gallery"), co-president Mike Jones told GamesIndustry.biz that the company plans on pushing into the gaming world in the same way it's pushed into the music world. "Just as they use MySpace to discover and listen to music, I want them to use MySpace to discover and play games," he said in an interview this week. One of the ways that Jones plans on implementing the new initiative is by making game suggestions to new users at the same time the site normally suggests music a new user might like. "We're making sure that when users sign up to MySpace, on the first screen after sign-up they have recommendations, which include games and bands -- at the same time ... that's getting the user initially seeded with the content." Unfortunately, though, Jones didn't say a peep about games that go a bit deeper than the standard Mafia Wars fare we've come to expect from social networks and their free-to-play games.
PlayStation Move requires 1-2 MB of system memory
Sony's GDC panel "Introducing the PlayStation Motion Controller was exactly that: An introduction to the newly named Move peripheral. David Coombes, Kirk Bender and Anton Mikhailov showcased a number of impressive tech demos, many of which demonstrated the Move's incredible precision and low latency. One of the most impressive demos showcased full body tracking using an on-screen body puppet, not unlike one of Project Natal's tech demos. Body tracking is made possible by combining the Move and PS3's head tracking capability. According to the presentation, the PS3 can also detect faces, going so far as to identify individuals through face contour and feature detection. The software will be able to recognize gender, age, smiles and when eyes open and close. Coombes explained that all the calculations necessary to handle image processing are done by the Cell CPU, which apparently excels at the doing floating point calculations. The raw data can be processed incredibly quickly by the PS3, taking "under a frame" to translate to a game experience. And while Mikhailov didn't reveal how much of the CPU's overall power the Move controller requires, he did reveal that the memory demands are truly "insignificant" -- 1-2 MB of system memory.
Unreal Engine 3 coming to Palm WebOS soon
The iPhone isn't the only touch-controlled mobile platform to get a baffling port of Unreal Engine 3. Palm announced that a version of UE3 on WebOS -- that's what the Palm Pre uses -- is on display at GDC. According to the announcement, licensed Unreal Engine developers will soon gain the ability to create games for the mobile platform, using both UE3 and Palm's new Plug-in Development Kit. The more mobile platforms support Unreal, the more cost-effective it will be to develop games for them using the technology. After all, once you've got an Unreal iPhone game, you now have the basis for a WebOS game too. [Thanks, Sean!]
Talkin' Windows Phone 7 Series gaming with Microsoft at GDC
We already got a look at Microsoft's little XNA show-and-tell as relates to Windows Phone 7 Series, but our colleague Andrew Yoon over at Joystiq had a chance for longer sit-down with Xbox Live general manager Ron Pessner and XNA Game Studio manager Michael Klucher at GDC today, and he's been kind enough to share the interview with us. The main topic of conversation was the company's plans regarding Xbox LIve and, specifically, how it would be integrating it into Windows Phone 7 Series. And believe us, there was plenty to discuss -- including the sweet science of porting games from Zune HD to 7 Series phones ("it's 90, 95 percent code reuse... in an hour or couple of hours, we're taking games that were written for Zune HD and putting them on the phone"), the importance of maintaining a consistent gameplay experience amongst different hardware, and the reasoning behind limiting devices to asynchronous multiplayer. What are you waiting for? Hit the source link to embark on this miraculous journey of discovery.
THQ's Bilson: Research and focus testing will 'usually destroy' creativity
During an interview at the 2010 Game Developers Conference, THQ executive VP of Core Games Danny Bilson told Joystiq that market research creates "bland" titles, citing it is not a process his group is willing to utilize for future development. "We don't do research to find out what people want to play. If you need to do that kind of research you must not be playing games yourself," Bilson said, noting that research and overusing focus tests can "misguide creative forces." According to Bilson, his core group at THQ is ruled by creating "excellent" titles. Put simply, Bilson says he will not ship a game if it's not "really good" -- noting that doing otherwise will make it impossible for him to "sleep at night." As an example of this process, Bilson noted his decision to push Darksiders from a 2009 release into the early-2010 calendar in order to ensure the game was of high quality. (Darksiders currently holds an average Metacritic rating of 83.) "Inspiration comes from one place and research and focus testing will usually destroy it. It will usually create 'bland' and create something for everyone and really nothing for anyone," he said, praising the idea that publishers should not ship a game until it's ready. "If my teams make really good games, in the long run, that's what people relate to. They're not buying advertising, they're not buying Wall Street nonsense. They're buying what's on that disc."
Mac drivers to be available for all Razer mice
World of Warcraft players using a Mac should be pleased to hear that gaming peripherals manufacturer Razer pledged their commitment to supporting the Mac gaming community at the Game Developers Conference. They announced that all upcoming Razer products will come with Mac driver support, including the Razer StarCraft 2 peripheral suite scheduled for release later this year. Prior to the Razer DeathAdder Mac Edition in 2008, all Razer mice and peripherals only had native Windows support and drivers. While these products would generally work with a Mac through its plug-and-play technology, customizing them was more difficult and in some cases, impossible. In order to configure my Razer Lachesis to make all its buttons usable on my Mac, I had to configure it on a PC and mapped some of the buttons as little used keyboard keys because the Mac wouldn't recognize click-throughs from more than a few mouse buttons. This situation improved with the release of the Razer Naga, which shipped with native Mac support, although the key-mapping functionality for the Mac came several weeks after the PC version. Currently, newer mice come with basic Mac support, although Razer promises the same functionality and customizability as their PC counterparts through future updates. Razer also promises to release Mac drivers for all existing products, which presumably includes their line of headsets and keyboards. While Mac gamers have always been treated as second class citizens by most peripheral manufacturers, it's encouraging to see a major player pay the community some attention. I mean, the Magic Mouse is awesome and all, but there's nothing like having a real gaming mouse to play WoW.
OptiTrack mixes motion capture with a virtual camera for delicious, Avatar-esque results
We knew virtual camera systems are starting gain traction, particularly in the world of cinema and within James Cameron's little set of toys, but it's pretty wild to see one in action. NaturalPoint is showing off its OptiTrack motion capture system at GDC, a budget-friendly multi-camera setup (if $6k is your idea of budget-friendly), but it also has a prototype of sorts of its upcoming virtual camera system. The camera's orientation and movement is actually tracked in the same way a motion capture suit is, and if you're in the same tracking space as a motion capture actor you can do "real" camera work with a live 3D rendered preview of the action. The shoulder-mounted camera has controls for virtual tracking and dolly moves, along with zoom, and has zero problem delivering that shaky handheld look that's all the rage in visual effects these days. There's no word on much this will retail for, but despite the fact that we have absolutely zero use for it we totally want one. Check out a video of it in action after the break. %Gallery-88029%
GDC: How Sucker Punch built inFamous' big city with a small team
Last year's shockingly awesome superhero title inFamous boasted a massive sandbox world known as Empire City -- a playground full of climbable, grindable, shootable objects. It was an impressive environment, made all the more impressive by a startling piece of information revealed by Sucker Punch's Nate Fox during a recent GDC panel: The whole city was created by a team of just 12 artists. Fox explained that this feat was accomplished with the liberal reusing of the game's catalog of environmental assets. For example, there were only two types of cars in the game, differentiated by hue shifts and decals. The map was partitioned into a hexagonal grid -- the inspiration for which came from the popular board game Carcassonne, Fox explained. Edges of each hex were designed to effortlessly fit together, allowing designers to make minor changes to each compartment, and paste the location into another chunk of the city. This might sound like a cheap tactic for a developer to employ, but Fox explained that a developer's time and resources are limited. By swiftly executing the creation of a game's setting, the developers are given more of an opportunity to focus on designing "evil lairs" and other memorable landmarks. Oh, and according to Fox, the industry term for these outstanding structures is "Weenies." Yes, for that reason. Yes, that is wonderful. %Gallery-26262%
GDC10: Massively's interview with Virtual Fairground
The idea of virtual worlds and MMOs based on established brands is not a new one, and Virtual Fairground is a company that's been in the market for a bit. They've had the time to fine tune the concept and find exactly what they want to offer their audience. We spent some time with Maarten Brands and Ilja Goossens of Virtual Fairground at GDC this week and heard all about what the company is working on and what their goals are. Follow along after the jump to see what they had to say.
Super Meat Boy dude: 'App Store is Tiger handheld of this generation'
[Castlevania Wiki] At last night's Indie Game Maker Rant, Tommy Refenes, one half of Team Meat, appropriately let off some steam about Apple's App Store, saying, "The majority of people who do anything for the App Store work on it and then kind of get screwed over." Refenes suggested that what the App Store specializes in are cheap ports of established brands, sold on their established names alone, as he compared it to the Tiger LCD handheld games of the late '80s and early '90s. "It's just a way to sell a brand," Refenes said. "That's what the Tiger handheld games were, and that's what I think the App Store is." To prove a point that the App Store is "kind of shit for most things," Refenes recounted the experiment he launched with Canabalt creator Adam Saltsman. The two developed a "joke game" called Zits & Giggles (in which players pop pimples) and submitted it to the App Store at the 99 cents price point. Each time sales dropped off, they raised the price. Consumers kept buying it, however, as the game rose to $15, then to $50, and so on -- it was even purchased for $299! We don't know what to take away from that, but luckily Refenes had an observation: "My conclusion to all of this is that the people who you're selling to on the App Store are not necessarily gamers." Care to challenge that theory? Zits & Giggles ($349.99):
GDC10: A chat with Cryptic's Bill Roper and Craig Zinkievich
As two of the most public figures at Cryptic Studios, Bill Roper (Champions Online) and Craig Zinkievich (Star Trek Online) are typically at the forefront of controversy, adulation and speculation. At GDC 2010, Massively sat down with the pair to discuss what it's like working for Cryptic, how they deal with the ups and downs of being game developers, and the pressure of handling the future of two hot MMORPG franchises. Massively: How do the Champions and STO teams collaborate between each other? Bill Roper: I think it's really good the way the company interacts back and forth -- "Hey, this worked for us, you guys should do that too." "This totally didn't work for us, don't do that, do something different." Craig Zinkievich: "Hey, you know, about three-and-a-half weeks after launch, don't have a free 90-day promo! Don't do that! That didn't work well!" [Laughs]
JPEGs from the frontlines of the GDC 2010 show floor
Click to flash-ify Unless you're a journalist, analyst or developer, your odds of ever attending the Game Developers Conference are pretty slim. Feel free to live vicariously through the Joystiq crew by checking out the gallery below. No, it's not nearly as flashy as E3 and PAX's show floors -- except in the case of the MotionCapture.com booth (pictured above), which is quite possibly the flashiest thing we've ever seen. %Gallery-88016%
Fable 2 sold 3.5 million copies, Lionhead 'needs' 5 million for Fable 3
Speaking during GDC, Peter Molyneux highlighted Lionhead's strategy for Fable 3, specifically noting that a franchise will die if it fails to grow. "If we don't grow as a franchise, If Fable doesn't get bigger as a franchise," said Molyneux, "then it will eventually die." Lionhead is "very happy" with the success of Fable so far, with Molyneux stating that the original Fable sold "about 3 million" copies, while Fable 2 moved approximately 3.5 million. He added that he hopes that 25-30 percent more people will play Fable 3, explaining Lionhead's plans to craft Fable 3 as more of an action-adventure title -- a genre which tends to perform better than RPGs. The overall goal for Lionhead is to sell more than five million copies of Fable 3. According to Molyneux, Fable 3 needs to sell that many in order to "be part of the big boys, the big blockbusters." How will Lionhead rope in that many new customers? Read our full coverage of the Fable 3 GDC panel to find out.
GDC roundup, day two
The tenth annual Game Developers Conference is in full swing in San Francisco, CA, and our sister sites Joystiq and Massively are on the scene! No matter what kind of games you're into, there's a ton of news on its way out of the convention, and we're compiling some of the stuff that might matter to you in daily roundups just for you. If you want the whole GDC news experience, check out all of Massively's and Joystiq's coverage, or yesterday's roundup. Sony has the power to Move you Though it might look like a black Wiimote topped with a scoop of sherbet, Sony's PlayStation Move motion peripheral aims to take the motion-sensitive gaming field to eleven. Joystiq's got all the Move info you need, and you can dance to it. 38 Studios swings for the fences with two new titles World Series champ Curt Schilling's 38 Studios is developing an "epic single-player RPG" codenamed Copernicus, and an MMO project codenamed Project Mercury. Oh, and fantasy novel fans: R.A. Salvatore is in charge of building the universe where both games take place. Welcome to Poisonville, population 4,000 Bigpoint Studios says their browser MMO Poisonville is the most expensive browser-based MMO to date, with a budget of two million dollars. It certainly seems to have been spent in the right places in this full-featured GTA-alike. It's the DLC Age at EA EA's John Schappert says that Dragon Age: Origins downloadable content has made over a million dollars so far! Digital distribution in total netted them $575 million last year and projections place next year's DD profits even higher. EA is ready with DLC strategies for several upcoming games. Monkey Island 2 Special Edition overflowing with new booty LucasArts' beloved Monkey Island franchise saw a resurgence with the release of a remastered Secret of Monkey Island last year, and now Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge is getting the same treatment, with new art, developer commentary, and improved controls. Sakaguchi's latest Story looks like a picture book Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi's Mistwalker Studios is hard at work on a new RPG, and they released some truly beautiful artwork of the game's island locale to whet our appetites.
GDC10: New playable faction and more coming to Star Trek Online
digg_url = 'http://massively.joystiq.com/2010/03/11/gdc10-new-playable-faction-and-more-coming-to-star-trek-online/'; We spent some time talking with Cryptic's Craig Zinkievich at GDC today, and got some fun new information on Star Trek Online. The most exciting thing was news of a new playable faction in Star Trek Online. We can expect that sometime "within the year", and we as players get to help decide. Borg, Romulan, it's up to you guys. Zinkievich says: There's a huge amount of the dev team right now interested in doing Romulan. I think the Borg would be really interesting as just something totally different, totally different gameplay. There are a lot of really cool mechanics, a lot of really cool things you can do there. Really, if you're in the MMO for the long haul, there are going to be a lot more playable factions, you can't stop with those two. There's Jem'Hadar, you're going to be going to the Dominion, there's Cardassians [...] so many playable factions that we can and will be releasing with the game. Cryptic is looking at the next big update to arrive for Star Trek Online around July, with another possibly near November: "We know that we just had a player survey when you first arrive at the site, and, like, ship interiors. [Players] want a whole lot more there, want a whole lot more functionality, why are other players coming to my ship, what's going on there? So we're making sure in July that's one of the things that we do. There's a big huge outcry for first contact missions, diplomacy missions, more non-combat within Star Trek, so we're really making sure with that July update we're really focusing on that." It sounds like we can look for a lot of new content tailored to what the community wants coming with the July update, so we'll be keeping a very close eye out for more information. (There was brief mention of the Horta being a playable race as well. We can only hope.)
Gaikai will be fee-free, utilize 300 data centers in the US
Meeting with Gaikai's founding fathers -- ( from left to right) Rui Pereira, Andrew Gault and David Perry -- this morning, we chatted about the company's unique take on "cloud gaming," particularly how, unlike competitor OnLive, there will be no fee to play streaming games using its servers and in-browser app, and what it's doing to "reduce friction" in trying (and eventually buying) games online. Saying that Gaikai "isn't trying to be PlayStation 4 or take out the next Wii," Perry described (and demoed) the concept of embedding instantly playable games on any website. A publisher can, for instance, have a clickable pop-up appear when people are looking at one of its games on Amazon, which quickly launches an overlay window running the full game, with whatever time limit the publisher chooses. After this period, players can opt to buy the game for unlimited streaming, download it, or have a physical copy shipped to them. What intrigued us more is the ability to Tweet from within these demos, and, if you're playing a multiplayer title, anyone who clicks the link sent to your Twitter feed will be launched into your game. We also got a look at a widget that places a small video of any game you're currently playing via Gaikai on your personal blog, which friends can click to either try the game or actually join the session you're in, if applicable. This demo used Mario Kart 64, in which it was possible for Gaikai staff to drop in as player two, three or four fairly easily. Perry also revealed to us that Gaikai has secured servers at 300 data centers across the US (as opposed to OnLive's five), in addition to inking deals with local broadband providers to install servers at another 900 peering locations -- all with the goal of keeping latency as low as possible. The ideas we saw in action have the potential to shake up the traditional game demo model, for sure. What do you think of what Gaikai's cooking up?
Mass Effect 2 DLC 'Kasumi's Stolen Memory' lands on Apr. 6 (don't forget!)
While Mass Effect 2's in-game DLC pipeline, The Cerberus Network, continues to transport new weapons (and soon, a new vehicle) to players for free, BioWare has announced the game's first pack of paid downloadable content. "Kasumi's Stolen Memory" finally completes Commander Shepard's dirty dozen, adding a confident female thief to your anti-Reaper repertoire. It's currently scheduled to launch for Xbox 360 and PC on April 6. After downloading the DLC, players can get in touch with Kasumi on the Citadel, either in the middle of an ongoing Mass Effect 2 game or after the completion of the main story (lesson learned from Mass Effect 1 DLC!). Once recruited, Shepard aids Kasumi on a secretive mission of recovery, which requires a suave disguise and a run-in with an influential and predictably corrupt art collector. The content, which also provides the "Locust" SMG, a flash-bang grenade loyalty power and a new Achievement, should take about an hour and a half to complete. BioWare is currently in the midst of "internal discussion" to determine the price of the DLC, but we'll keep you updated as soon as it's finalized. Look for some impressions of "Kasumi's Stolen Memory" coming soon to Joystiq as part of our ongoing GDC coverage. Spoiler: It looks great.
