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Microsoft bringing 'the full lineup' of Natal titles to E3
GDC 2010 is the hotness this week, but according to Microsoft's Mindy Mount (speaking at a tech conference in NYC), E3 should be fun this year, too. As you might expect, Microsoft is bringing "the full lineup" of Project Natal titles to the convention in June. We know there are a whole bunch of developers working on Natal titles, including EA, Capcom, Forza Motorport's Turn 10, and SpawnPoint Studios. Mount promises that Microsoft is "putting some of our best people on coming up with great game ideas for this, and we're going to have some great stuff." We'll start working out now to make sure we have enough stamina to flail our limbs all week long.
Microsoft's SpawnPoint Studios working on Natal launch title
So that's what they're doing! A pair of job listings on Microsoft's career site have revealed that the mysterious SpawnPoint Studios is currently hiring for a Project Natal launch title. The listings don't reveal any details about the title, though they do ask specifically for someone to "work on a Natal launch title, built from the ground up in MGS / SpawnPoint Studios." The listing notes further that potential employees will work with "a very strong team fresh off AAA titles, starting a new project in a start-up like environment." This is the most we've heard about the studio since Microsoft's Phil Spencer first dropped its name in a Joystiq interview last year. Spencer then intimated that SpawnPoint was "really doing a lot of the Natal work." Later in the same year, we tried to pry some SpawnPoint info from 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor with little success. So, SpawnPoint remains something of a mystery for now, though it sounds like we're guaranteed to know more come the launch of Natal. Hopefully, we'll hear something sooner. [Via VGTribune] Source - Software Development Engineer-Senior-MGS-Project Natal Job Source - Software Development Engineer-MGS-Project Natal Job
Interview: 343 Industries' Frank O'Connor
Now that Halo Waypoint has launched and the Halo Legends anime project will soon begin airing on Xbox consoles everywhere, we got the chance to discuss the current state of Halo with 343 Industries creative director, Frank O'Connor. After the break, you'll find discussion on Waypoint, Legends, Halo 3: ODST sales and whereabouts of Ryan Payton. We also talk about the whether or not there's just too much Halo out there, whether we'll see any Halo games for kids and we even squeeze in a question about Pimps at Sea.
Interview: Microsoft Game Studios' Phil Spencer
If given the choice of becoming a (presumably) anthropomorphic vegetable, Phil Spencer would opt for an eggplant. Sure, we spoke to the confident head of Microsoft Game Studios about other things -- Halo, Project Natal, Fable, Crackdown, the Xbox 360's successor, blah blah blah -- but with that profound scoop out of the way, there's barely any reason to read this interview. Mind you, the part where Spencer suggests that alternate forms of input (whether in addition to or in substitute of traditional controllers) might become a common expectation is pretty interesting. You should definitely read that. Joystiq: We just came out of the Tokyo Game Show panel discussion for Project Natal ... Phil Spencer: The creators panel. Yes, the creators panel. Hideo Kojima was there; they brainstormed about all these games. How much focus is Microsoft Game Studios placing on Natal development internally in comparison to other projects? It's a big focus for us in first party. As a first party, I think it's our duty, it's our responsibility to look at the new technologies that we bring to our platform. We did this with Live. We did at launch of 360. When we look at Project Natal as an opportunity for first party to truly innovate on our platform, creating new experiences, new intellectual property, we're very focused. A large percentage of the studio right now is thinking about Natal as part of what they're doing.
