Game Developers Conference

[JKTrix]

If you didn't know, there's a conference going on in the US right now. It has been becoming a more and more important event, and with E3's decline it's growing even more.

Most, if not all, major game sites are having special coverage. Unfortunately i can't access most of these sites, but I know for sure that Kotaku (www.kotaku.com) and 1UP (www.1up.com) are participating. I can access Joystiq's (http://gdc07.joystiq.com/) listings, but I prefer to aggregate.

I'm not gonna list everything that's happened (you can read 'em yourself), but here are a few things that have been shown:

-Blue Dragon: Out in August, Sept in PAL. US version will have Engl. and Jap voices.
-Lost Odyssey: Apparently 'simultaneous' worldwide release by Christmas
-Bunch Of Games for XBLA, including Every Extend

Coming up:
-Phil Harrison (Sony) Keynote (though it may have been leaked (http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2007/03/05/rumor-phil-harrisons-gdc-keynote-speech-in-full-detail/))
-Shigeru Miyamoto (Nintendo) Keynote. Unfortunately Nintendo is in a legal position where they can't announce anything big, so we may not see any bob-ombs (http://www.joystiq.com/2006/03/23/gdc-the-iwata-drop-the-bom-omb-guy/) drop this year.

Regardless, this is the 'Game Developers Conference', and is originally targeted at talking to the Devs. There's a lot more going on that will likely be boring to those not interested in game development, but if you go to various game news sites (or perhaps the Official site (http://www.gdconf.com/))you're bound to find them.

[BlueChaos]

Can you send me some links. I am interested, I want to learn more about this thing.

[JKTrix]

See how in my post, certain words are a different colour? (like 'Kotaku', '1UP', etc).

Those are links. Click 'em.

[BlueChaos]

Oh I see now. Thanks.

[JKTrix]

Sony's Keynote is going on right now.

Several folks are 'liveblogging', including Joystiq.
http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/07/joystiq-and-engadget-live-at-sonys-2007-gdc-keynote/

I can imagine 1up.com's being much more entertaining.

[Mirage]

What do you mean by "unfortunately Nintendo is in a legal position where they can't announce anything big"?

[JKTrix]

Apparrently (http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72871-0.html?tw=wn_index_6)Nintendo is involved in some stock sales, so they are "legally prohibited from making any forward-looking statements at the conference."

If they announce something awesome and new, their stock price will likely go up. I don't know much about the stocks business, but I guess they can't do something like voluntary advertising that is sure to drive the price up.

Also, the PS3 Home stuff looks pretty cool.

Edit: Did a little digging, found this out (http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=auWfv3BlI.sI&refer=japan). Who knew that Japan (the country) actually owned a bit of Nintendo? Looks like they're getting rid of it, and this is that stock sale I mentioned.

[Elite Lord Sigma]

However, I do think Nintendo can still reveal more information about games that are already known, such as Super Mario Galaxy and Super Smash Bros. Brawl. It's been months since I've last heard anything new about Brawl, so I'm personally hoping that something will be said about it.

[JKTrix]

PS3 Home Video

http://www.gamebrink.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14079

PS3 Second Life, but free?

[Dreddz]

Im not really digging the Playstation 3 Home, but whatever, its free.

[Roto13]

Even meh things make me happy when they're free.

[Dreddz]

The only thing im not keen on is the whole virtual person thing. Dunno why, just not my thing, never cared for stuff like the Sims.

On the other hand, although I admit I havent really looked deep into what this feature offers, if it does do some sort of Live thing, then its nothing but a good thing. If it does so happen to blow Live out of the water ( very unlikely, but whatever ) then Microsoft should re-think whether they should charge people for Xbox Live. At the moment, we are paying for a service, a very good service, but if Sony rival this service, with no charge, Microsoft should feel its an obligation to make Live free. Or add some amazing thing to Live which makes its worth it all over again.

EDIT - Now I remember what Home reminds me of, Habbo Hotel, which was a load of crap. Home just seems like a more flashy version of it.

[Necronopticous]

In case you haven't seen the LittleBigPlanet footage (http://kotaku.com/gaming/littlebigplanet/clips-littlebigplanet-242305.php).

[Maxico]

The SecondLife stuff looks a little dull to me. Playing pool, and being able to jump into a game together seems pretty cool. Say you were waiting for a third person to come online, and played pool to kill the time. Doesn't really seem like something that would be used on a regular basis.

It just seems a bit bland and boring.


LittleBigPlanet, on the other hand, looks really, really fantastic. Now if they could do the whole pseudo MMO lobby deal, in that art style, I would probably have found it alot more appealing.

EDIT: I just watched the HD clip of LittleBigPlanet and it's pretty much the best thing ever. The world needs more amazingly polished, physics based '2.5D' games.

The PS3's Loco Roco?

[JKTrix]

The Home is where your 'Digital Avatar' will live. You get furniture and whatever, and your game 'Achievements' will be trophies and somesuch. It's a very nifty idea.

Another feature is a more expanded version of what Halo 2 did, where you can make a party of people and play a bunch of matches together. With Home, you invite people's avatars to your home, and it'll be like having a bunch of friends on the couch with you in real life. Instead of just playing a bunch of 'Halo 2 matches', you're able to play entirely different games while staying in the same 'group'. This is something Live in general does not do, though I imagine they've already started work on it.

[KentaRawr!]

Little Big Planet looks like some serious fun. :p I have no idea why, it just looks awesome.

And that Home thing seems like the type of thing I'd be playing with for a while, and then dump. n_n; Oh well, it's free.

[JKTrix]

The Home thing, however, is not a game. It is the PlayStation Network's graphical interface for social interaction. It's almost like it will be a new Dashboard, but on a different level. Besides walking around and moving furniture about, you can look at videos, access your games, and form multiplayer parties.
They mentioned that you can create a 'base' of sorts for a clan. Home is more than just a free little thing. It is a part of the Playstation, just like 360's blades and Wii's channels. They call it 'Game 3.0', the next level (whereas 360's blades and Wii's channels and pretty much everything non-PS3 is 'Game 2.0').

It'll be interesting to see how fleshed out it becomes. Cosmetically, it does have a very 'Sims' look, and the Sims is one of the biggest franchises in gaming.

On the other hand, it would kind of suck if we *have* to use this UI to jump into online games.

Miyamoto's speech is today, starting 10:30 PST. The gamesites will have 'liveblogs' of the event. CliffyB's speech is before that at 8 or 9 PST.

[Maxico]

I think this whole "Game 3.0" deal is a bad idea, certainly for console games. As with YouTube, I would take professionaly created content over user created content any day.

Given the casual gamers that consoles are targeted at, I just don't see there being too much amazing content coming out of this. As opposed to, say, the mod scenes centered around certain PC games.

My interest in LittleBigPlanet died down quite significantly after I found out that the levels are user created. There better be a metric ton of elements to put in levels, or that's going to get old fast.

[Dreddz]

That LittleBigPlanet thing looks awesome, definately more my thing.

Now that I think about it, the Home does do some pretty cool things. One thing people rave about on the Xbox is achievement points, I personally hate the damn things, but people seem to love them. The main reason to get them is to show off, dunno why people feel the need to, but they do. Now, the Trophy system in Home does sound pretty cool, having a massive trophy with your name on it for everyone to see would be so boss. What better way to show off...

[Renmiri]

My hair stood on it's end when I heard "the biggest matching game on the net" on the PS3 Home trailer. My kids are NOT getting in it! :mad:

[Yamaneko]

Home looks like a step in the right direction for Sony, but ultimately what I want is an online hub where I can get messages from people and connect to them to play the games I own online. I'm not the type of person who would go out of their way to buy furniture for their virtual room and invite my friends to watch HD trailers on my virtual Sony Bravia. I want to play games online. Period. The other stuff is secondary. Hopefully the backend of Home will be accessible through a non-3D representation on PSN.

[JKTrix]

So Miyamoto's speech is done. (http://www.joystiq.com/2007/03/08/joystiqs-live-coverage-of-the-nintendo-gdc-keynote/)

Nothing major or exciting from our POV, as expected. Did announce he's making a Channel for a 'Mii Popularity Contest', and showed some new footage of Super Mario Galaxy.

[KentaRawr!]

I hope this footage of Super Mario Galaxy is spewed all over the internet for innocent civilians to step in. >_> I want to see it.

Edit: Silly me, it already was! :p

[JKTrix]

I hope this footage of Super Mario Galaxy is spewed all over the internet for innocent civilians to step in. >_> I want to see it.

Edit: Silly me, it already was! :p

http://www.gamebrink.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14129
Apparently it's coming September 15.

Also Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
http://www.gamebrink.com/news/879-The_Legend_of_Zelda_Phantom_Hourglass_GDC_2007_Footage.html

[Maxico]

Phantom Hourglass looks horribly ugly compared to the beautifully drawn Minish Cap.

Same with the new Pokemon game on the DS. I can't really see why they're replacing smooth clean lines, with jaggy low poly models, while keeping the old 2D gameplay.


Also, I've gone full circle on LittleBigPlanet, after finding out the extent to which items are malleable and the possiblilties of creating enourmously complex, physics based contraptions.

[Mirage]

Oh Maxico, you're living in the past, 3D is the answer to everything!

[Roto13]

Well, for Phantom Hourglass, there seems to be quite a bit of 3D gameplay. Or at least pretty footage on the top screen. :P