Tag Archives: gdc 2008

TERA claims to be the “true action mmo”, so it’s about time they started showing off some true action end game content.

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Think Services has announced that GDC Austin will from here on out be officially known as GDC Online, since that’s the event’s main focus – online games.

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The Game Developers Conference has some of its lecturers listed for the March 9 – March 13 event, and it looks as though Final Fantasy XIII will be featured in at least three of ‘em.

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Peter Molyneux won’t be announcing a new game in his GDC session today.

Sorry to disappoint.

“I have a bit of confession about tomorrow really”, he told VG247 in San Francisco yesterday.

“A lot of the times I’ve done talks at GDC it was to talk about the game I was working on. This time, I’m talking about experiments at Lionhead and how we come up with ideas.

“There is a process to creativity and anyone can experiment, therefore I will be showing some of these inventive game mechanics from the past.”

Molyneux had previously hinted that a new project could be aired at GDC, but Peter’s sticking strictly to creative process on existing games, and showing some concepts the crowd is likely to find odd.

“Some of these [mechanics] failed tragically, and some are so truly weird that the audience will be like, ‘Why did they even attempt that?’,” he said.

“But what I think people are going to take away from it is that you don’t have to be scared to be inventive, or scared to work on weird things.

“It’s a process, and process is part of creativity: that is what my ambition is for tomorrow.

“If I finish putting my slides together.”

We’re going to liveblog Peter’s session. It’s from 2:30pm – 3:30pm PST today. That’s 9.30pm – 10.30pm GMT or 10.30 – 11.30 CET.

DSi, you definitely got your great, great grandpappy‘s genes.

Speaking during his “Inspiration Behind Nintendo DSi Development” GDC talk, project leader of the Nintendo DSi Hardware group Masato Kuwahara said that Nintendo plans to release “Nintendo DSi-enhanced game cards,” which will hold more features than your obsolete, back-of-the-closet-bound DS Lite can handle.

“For example,” Kuwahara said, “you will use these features if you want to create textures from photographs taken with the DSi camera.”

The game carts are still in development.

Thanks, Kotaku.

The DS officially has its You’re in the Movies-killer.

At today’s GDC keynote, Nintendo gave conference-goers a look at WarioWare: Snapped for the DSi.

The game requires that you line up your head and hands for the camera before catapulting you through a, er, typical WarioWare gauntlet so that it can then play back recorded footage of you playing the game after you’re done.

Sounds like the kids’ll soon have a new set of questionable tapes to innocently stumble onto. God help us all if the game has multiple save files.

During today’s Nintendo GDC keynote, Satoru Iwata demonstrated a title called Rock and Roll Climber for WiiWare.

Apparently, it allows players to defy virtual gravity by scaling rockfaces using the Wii Balance Board in conjunction with the Wii-mote and Nunchuck.

Then, when you reach the top of your craggy adversary, you’re given the ability to spit in gravity’s face with a rockin’ guitar jam session. Space travel doesn’t have anything on this.

We can’t wait until the inevitable volcano level. Guitars, rockfaces, and hot lava. Sign us up.

Nintendo just announced a new Legend of Zelda title for the DS. It’s called Spirit Tracks, and will be out later this year!

A quick video showed Link on a train “conducting it,” according to our lady on the scene, and then him fighting a monster thing “like an owl.”

There was nothing else shown. We’ll have plenty more soon, with any luck.

Get the full liveblog of Iwata’s keynote here.

Straight from Nintendo’s GDC keynote, the company just announced that a WiiWare version of Final Fantasy IV’s cell phone-based sequel, The After Years, as well as a sequel to Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, are on the way.

Get the full liveblog of the speech here.

Nintendo’s Satoru Iwata just confirmed that the Wii has reached 50 million sales globally. The news comes from Nintendo’s GDC keynote.

Watch our liveblog for more.

Uh oh. According to this, GDC organiser CMP has revealed potential plans to move the show to an invite-only model for press, news that will scare the living shit out of journalists that went through the nightmare that was E3 attendance last year.

“We don’t have it nailed down, but we are looking at moving to an invite model for press access at GDC,” said GDC boss Jamil Moledina. “It’s meant to be a networking event for people who make games, but more and more we are seeing a lot of individuals who are obtaining press credentials who aren’t full-time press. It’s kind of open to being spoofed, in a way.”

Concerns have been raised in the last couple of years about the popularity of the event, with developers complaining in private that the show’s atmosphere was being shot by an abundance of quote-seekers.

“Making sure the Game Developers Conference fits its core goals is the main thing we concern ourselves with,” said Moledina. “As long as it remains predominantly about learning, thats what we are concerned with.”

He added, “I am concerned that if we don’t focus on what makes GDC work we will face some complications down the road.”

Do read this. E3 faced exactly the same problem before publishers called the shots in 2006 and effectively shut the show down, and what GDC does now on this issue will mark the US tradeshow roadmap forever. For press to get into E3 now, they have to be invited on a basis of publisher “scores”, so unless you’re named in person by enough publishers to the E3 organisers, you simply don’t get in. GDC is the major business hub not only for development for every games media company in the world, so the ramifications of putting restrictions on press for the media industry itself could be hard felt.

The smell? The stench of fear.

Outspoken developer David Jaffe is to keynote the GDC Career Seminar on February 21 in San Francisco. The God of War and Twisted Metal lead will give a talk titled “From Grunt to God to Startup: Career Lessons from the Edge of Game Development,” which will apparently offer a “realistic view of his career path which has spanned a vehicular combat franchise, a breakthrough mythological action franchise, and his own indie startup.”

Definitely worth going along if you’re in town, of only to see how many times David can say “fuck” in a single speech. Full press release through the link.

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Just in case you thought GamePro had anything of consequence to say about Gears of War 2 in its next issue, it doesn’t. Mark Rein said so. Mark Rein should know what he’s talking about, seeing as he’s Epic’s boss. This is what he just said on the Epic forum:

“It is complete nonsense. We have not announced a sequel to Gears of War to Gamepro or anyone else for that matter.”

Consider yourself told. The Epic head said today that speculation regarding a Gears of War 2 announcement at GDC later this month is just that, and that the show is for showing dev tools “not games”. Regardless of Rein’s protestations, it seems he can’t walk more than a couple of steps without someone asking him whether or not he’s going Epic’s going to be showing the game in the Moscone Center on February 18.

Any chance of a reply to that email, Mark?

Philips amBX is to announce new partners for its sensory technology at GDC, a PR spokesperson has confirmed this morning.

The company’s stand at the San Francisco show will feature pods split into four, with a publisher’s PC game hooked up to amBX-enabled peripherals in each segment. “We’re going to have Ubisoft, Codemasters and a few others that we’re going to announce at the show,” the rep told VG247. “We’re going to have seven or eight people doing demos on the stand, and we’re expecting it to be very busy.”

amBX is a Philips technology that allows developers to build physical, external effects into games, such as lighting, rumble and wind. Currently, amBX is only available for an ever-growing number of PC games, but a console solution is known to be in the works. The system announced its first major publishing partnership at CES with news that Ubisoft’s Brothers in Arms Hell’s Highway and Far Cry 2 will support amBX.

According to Eurogamer, Epic boss Mark Rein has responded to rumours that Gears of War 2 will be shown at this month’s GDC by saying it’s “the show where we sell our engine not our games”.

GamePro’s upcoming cover has the words “Gears of War 2″ on the cover, fuelling speculation that the game is to be shown at the San Franciscan coference later this month. The magazine releases on February 12, with GDC starting on February 18.

The Eurogamer piece also notes that the Rein has warned that Epic’s stand at the show isn’t as big as some would lead us to believe. The Epic stand, in the West Hall, is 2,800 square feet, according to the floorplan, next to Microsoft’s stand which is a belting 4,800 square feet. That means Epic’s stand is larger than Sony, Nintendo and Intel’s in the North Hall. It looks as though Nokia’s is bigger, but it’s an L-shape and there’s no detail on its size. In fact, the only other stand in the entire show that is definitely the same size as Epic’s is Nordic Game’s in the North Hall. In summary, then, Epic’s stand is massive. Rein’s right, though: these pictures are deceptive.

You can take a look at the floorplans here.

This week’s news was dominated by EA’s third quarter conference call, but it was just smoke and mirrors masking the main event. While not blatantly obvious, this GamePro cover was by far the biggest story this week, signalling the beginning of 2008’s big reveals and the start of the stories and games that will dominate consumer, trade and retail press for the rest of the year.

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