The Select and Start News Report: 03.12.07
Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 03.12.2007
HUGE report from the Game Developers Conference. Sony's "Game 3.0" titles, Miyamoto's philosphy on designing games, publishers ranting on developers, and more.
Welcome to a huge edition of The Select and Start News, as we wrap up all the stuff that went down during the week that was the Game Developers Conference. Sony, Nintendo, and many publishers had plenty to say.
The Game Developers Conference News [credit: GameSpot, GameDaily, Gamasutra, DEN, GameSpy, 1UP, Kotaku]
SONY NEWS; HARRISON'S KEYNOTE, PS3 "HOME", AND LITTLEBIGPLANET
This was a HUGE week for Sony, as they revealed two new titles for the Playstation 3 that could actually get the damn console selling.
-First off, Harrison made his speech about "Game 3.0", and unlike previous PS3 catchphrases like "4D Graphics", this one makes a lot of sense. He first talked about what exactly it meant. Game 1.0 as he calls it was when all the content of a game was on one disc/cartridge. Game 2.0 was when we connected those consoles and PC's and got added content. Finally, Game 3.0 is all about us, the users, who will create the content of games. Harrison points to user-generated sites such as MySpace and YouTube as the influence for Sony for this concept, as well as Time Magazine's 2006 Person-of-the-Year ("You", for sites like YouTube and Wikipedia). So how will Sony emphasize "Game 3.0"? With two new titles that could get the PS3 selling: Home and LittleBigPlanet.
Here's the description of Home straight from the Sony Press Release:
-- Making your own personalized 3D character or avatar. These realistic human characters are highly customizable with different body types, skin tones, ages, clothing and accessories, creating a unique personality for each user.
-- Exploring the 3D community that is Home -- a sleek, modern indoor space featuring spacious common areas, retail shops, game lobbies and extensible, customizable personal apartments.
-- Communicating with others through text, audio and video chat, along with sophisticated emotional animations for each character.
-- Being assigned an apartment in Home where others can be invited to join you as you show off your own style in an area you can personalize yourself with furniture, art and other items. You can even show your video, pictures and music content stored on your PS3 hard drive.
-- "Hall of Fame," where you can display new 3D trophies that will be unlocked through in-game milestones in PS3 games.
To sum it all up: It's Nintendo's Mii's + Second Life + Xbox Live Arcade. I can't believe this, but Sony finally showed us something truly amazing about the PS3. But it doesn't stop there, because they also revealed LittleBigPlanet.
-LittleBigPlanet is a game where you can fully customize the levels and share them with friends online. Here's some details from the press release:
-- Players craft their own individual experience. There's not just one way to play.
-- Unlimited possibilities for user-created content -- players can customize everything: their characters, the landscape around them and their own "patch" on LittleBigPlanet.
-- Players discover and win new skills and items to aid them on their creative journey.
-- Online and offline multiplayer modes -- work as a team or get competitive.
Wondering what this was at first, I decided to check out the trailers for it myself. First was the LBP Editor, which had a couple rag-doll looking characters placing stickers and stars all over the place. Then there was a completed level in itself, which had four characters run to the end of the stage like a platformer, running into all sorts of objects to interact with like giant soccer balls and bouncy tree branches. Overall, LittleBigPlanet feels a lot like Line Rider, and since Line Rider was so addictive at times, no doubt LittleBigPlanet is going to be a whole lot of fun. According to the press release, A fully-featured sample version of LittleBigPlanet is expected on the PLAYSTATION Network this fall, with a full version expected to be made available in early 2008.
So how did Nintendo and Microsoft respond? Here's what each of them had to say:
Chris Satchell, general manager of Microsoft's Game Developer Group, dismissed it to CVG, saying it was "not a very game-centric approach."
"I think they've definitely taken some concepts that we originated like achievements, but I think they're pushing in a different direction and we've sort of fundamentally got two different approaches going on here. I think theres is very much a vision that people see it and it looks cool but it's fundamentally separate from the games - or at least what they've shown so far," Satchell continued. "It's a cool world but it's like a little game by itself. Our approach is the other way around; it's that games are the center and that's the star of the show, that's what people buy the console for."
But Nintendo's response was more interesting. Here's what an unnamed spokesperson had to say.
"This is an example of Sony's 'Mii-too' approach," said a Nintendo spokesperson to CVG. "But as Mr. Miyamoto states, Nintendo years ago considered and rejected the type of approach Sony is now taking...Miis have become a cultural phenomenon in their own right, appealing well beyond the traditional core gamer audience, and the process of populating them across the Wii universe is just beginning," said the spokesperson.
Yeah, well, Nintendo also considered and rejected the original Playstation. Also, if the rumors are true that Nintendo isn't giving third-party developers the kits needed to take advantage of the Mii's and no online games until 2008, PS3 could possibly kill the Wii. And here I thought I'd never type that sentence.
Other PS3 News:
-Incognito Entertainment's "Warhawk" will now be sold only as a downloadable title via the PlayStation Network. The reason for this decision was that Dylan Jobe of Incognito thought the single player game was not up to par, so the game will only b a multiplayer game supporting 32 players online.
-Last year Kutaragi's was demoted from president of SCE to Group CEO and Chairman. Turns out the reason why is that Ken Kutaragi doesn't exactly get along with a lot of people at Sony. Back around the PSP launch, Kutaragi hosted a big event for the system and didn't invite Sony's electronics division. He also blamed that division for the lack of PS3s and admits that the quality has gone down. I never knew the man could be such a rebel!
NINTENDO NEWS; MIYAMOTO'S KEYNOTE, NEW MII CHANNEL, AND MORE SUPPORT
Shingeru Miyamoto also spoke at the GDC, where topics ranged from "The Nintendo Difference", how he designs his games, and the mysterious disappearance of Mario 128.
-Throughout the keynote, Miyamoto would be using the Photo Channel on the Wii for his presentation. In your face Powerpoint!
-He first talked about the reputation video games. Back in 1998, the best selling games were Goldeneye 007, Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Gran Turismo, Banjo Kazooie and Super Mario 64. But by 2004, the best selling games were GTA: San Andreas, Madden 2005, Halo 2, Halo 2 Limited Ed., and ESPN NFL 2K5. The reputation of the game industry was that they were turning kids into zombies. Gamers also wanted to be playing the sam type of games, and that was starting to threaten the developers. So Nintendo came up with a creative vision he calls "The Nintendo Difference".
-The first element in "The Nintendo Difference" was "Expanded Audience". How exactly does Miyamoto test the expanded audience? Simple: his wife. While games like Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. were played by nearly everyone, his wife never cared for them, hence the "Wife-O-Meter" was at a low. She didn't even show interest in Tetris. But when Ocarina of Time came out and their daughter starting playing it, she was starting to get interested but wouldn't play. Then when Animal Crossing came up, Miyamoto told her there were no enemies to fight, so she picked up the controller and started playing. then when Nintendogs came out, she was really starting to get interested in gaming. Then once Brain Age appeared, the "Wife-O-Meter" was reaching high. She was now a hardcore gamer. Then when the "Everybody Votes" Channel appeared on the Wii, she downloaded and used it by herself. She also likes making Mii's of the family and other friends. The meter was now in full swing.
-The second element in "The Nintendo Difference" was "Balance/Devotion to Entertainment", explaining every employee is able to focus solely on entertainment. Nintendo has a good balance of engineers and developers and stressed the importance of collaboration. Even though Miyamoto designed every Nintendo controller, he says it's been a group effort. The Wii controller had many prototypes and the teams were concerned about losing the heritage of traditional controllers and games they've created all these years. They needed to find the perfect balance between hardware and software, and Miyamoto believes they've found it by using the remote style.
-The third element in "The Nintendo Difference" was "Risk". The bigger the challenge, the bigger the risk. Miyamoto even questioned as to what a video game is. He says Nintendo employees are encouraged to do things differently from everyone else, citing the DS and Touch Generations games as an example. He says the Wii is the biggest risk Nintendo has ever made, especially with giving up traditional controllers for the Wii Remote. It wasn't until E3 2006 when the Wii recieved a majority of good praise that Miyamoto knew that the Wii was worth the risk.
-Miyamoto then went from the corporate vision to his vision. He asked lots of times about where he got his ideas or why did he design a level a certain way, but he says the more people look into specifics, the more they get away from real inspiration. Miyamoto's main focus is to imagine the face of the player when playing a game and getting a positive reaction. An example he uses is Wii Play, which got some mediocre review scores in the US. Miyamoto says that reviewers should add a new category to scoring games: how fun it is for people who don't play them.
(I assume he means for casual gamers or gamers who aren't into that genre, because if there are people that don't play them at all, why review for them?)
-Another important part of his vision is collaboration, especially with games like The Legend of Zelda. When the game was first made, Miyamoto's superiors didn't like how the game didn't have a straight dungeon path and the puzzles were too hard. Miyamoto ignored them and even got rid of Link's sword in the beginning, so gamers would talk with each other on how to beat this game. This kind of communication is what inspired Animal Crossing, and that sold over 7 million copies worldwide.
-He then talks about priortization, citing baseball in Wii Sports as an example. Developers and designers are always saying "not enough", whether it'd be about the budget or the time or something else. When it came down to Wii Sports, he wanted it to be realistic but it only had one stadium, no teams, no fielding, and you can't bunt. Miyamoto decided to priortize on just the fundamentals, pitching and hitting, to complete the game on time and still make it somewhat realistic.
-Finally, he talked about tenacity. He showed a Famicom Disk System program for creating customizable faces, an N64 Disk Drive 3D character editor, and the cancelled GameCube title Stage Debut. All of these games/programs were canned, but then when the Wii came out and the DS team was working on a face utility program, Miyamoto finally got it right with the Mii's by making things simple. Something he was wanting to do for twenty years finally came to life thanks to tenacity and taking risks.
-Afterwards, he talked Mario and what exactly happened to "Mario 128". He says that we've actually played this game. We just called it Pikmin. He also says that ideas from Mario 128 will appear in Super Mario Galaxy, which he then showed a new trailer of. He says that we will play Super Mario Galaxy this year. He then signed off with this: "We are human, and our job is to entertain humans. And to do that we must always remember the human touch...If we can convert my wife, I believe we can convert anyone."
Other Wii News:
-Straight from the press release, EA has announced more titles for the Wii: SSX™ Blur, Tiger Woods PGA TOUR® 07, The Godfather® Blackhand Edition and Medal of Honor Vanguard™, all set to release this spring.
-In between all that talk about his wife making Mii's, Miyamoto mentioned about a new Wii Channel for Miis. This new channel is basically a popularity contest between people Miis around the world. No name or release date was given.
-According to SNK's Ben Herman, rumor has it there will be no third-party online games for the Wii throughout 2007. Nintendo has not made any official confirmation. [credit: Wii Blog]
PUBLISHER RANTS
Every year the GDC hold a session for publishers to rant about things they need to get off their chest. This year's rant session was titled "Burning Mad: Game Publishers Rant". Here's what the publishers had to say:
Alex St. John -- CEO and founder, Wild Tangent
St. John here has got issues with Windows Vista. He says Vista shipped as a piece of software that breaks any game you try to play on it except, oddly enough, World of Warcraft. St. John blames Microsoft for making Vista think that any program not made by Microsoft is automatically considered spyware.
Just another reason why I'm sticking to XP for now. I've got better things to spend the $200 which I don't have on.
Richard Hilleman - Electronic Arts
He didn't so much give a rant but rather some advice: Better leadership in the games industry for communication in the development process. Schools teach you to think and lead a group of 3, but then you're unprepared to lead a group of 30. Another one of his ideas? "Let your boss know that he's doing a lousy job."
You know how some people say "Honesty is the best policy?" Those people are idiots.
Nicole Bradford -- Vivendi Universal
Bradford called for developers to take greater roles in the education process. Many middle and high school kids want careers that are "computer related", especially gaming. Bradford even suggested this course of action: Calling for the industry (IGDA) to establish a national speaker bureau, funding and volunteers from the development community.
Now that would be a great idea. The only speeches I ever got as a kid was from D.A.R.E. and their anti-drug crap, and in the end it was all pointless but that's a rant for another time (or perhaps here?).
Jason Della Rocca -- IGDA
More simple advice: developers need to seek other medias besides games to benefit in the creative process, and basically repeating what Hilleman said.
Chris Hecker -- Maxis
Back in 2005, he ranted about the balance of graphics, physics, and gameplay. With PS3 and Xbox 360 released, that balance is being broken, leaning towards graphics and physics rather then gameplay. His questions back then was "Will Nintendo save us?"
His answer today? "The Wii is a piece of shit."
Bashing the manufacturing process ("Take two GameCubes and duct tape them together") and the "piece of shit underpowered CPU", he stressed that graphics weren't important but how intelligent the console can be for delivering more "serious" games. And that's his rant: Nintendo isn't taking games seriously. He finds the approach Nintendo taking (Eiji Aonuma says to just make games that are fun) not good enough compared to Sony and Microsoft (games as art).
His two pieces of advice for Nintendo? 1) Push games as a serious art form, and 2) "Make a console that doesn't suck ass."
Okay, I've honestly lost track of what this guy was saying. Two years ago it seems it was about gameplay rather then graphics, but now apparently it's about treating games as art. And for someone who thought the balance was out of whack with PS3 and Xbox 360, he just outright bashes the Wii for being the graphically weaker console and saying that fun games just aren't good enough. I think this guy is either changing his mind on what he thinks or he's a damn hypocrit.
AND THEN...A couple days later, he offered this apology:
"I was trying to be thought provoking and entertaining and fun, and a lot of the stuff went too far over the top on the entertaining and fun side, so that it was no longer thought provoking, just inflammatory. And in the process, I hurt a bunch of people I care about. And so, I want to apologize now. I do not think that the Wii is a piece of shit."
His comments also did not reflect the opinions of EA or Maxis. He also praised Nintendo for it's innovative controller, the user interface, and the affordable price.
And thus this is why Man created MySpace: So we can rant mindlessly about stuff and be as inflammatory as we want. Though with all the Sony bashing over the past few months, perhaps we did need someone to bash Nintendo for something.
Lee Jacobson
Jacobson told a few stories about "dishonest developers". Though he said a majority of developers are good, there are those that are outright dishonest and pull many illegal stunts. He talked about certain unnamed studios tried to get away with skimming milestone money off the top, pocketing funds meant for staff payroll, and then accusing publishers of "screwing everyone" and taking credit for the development of a game while another studio is actually doing it.
His most amusing story was when one studio claimed to have two different teams. After visiting one team and breaking for lunch, they visited the other team which had very familiar faces, just with different clothing and backwards hats. "In building a relationship with a publisher, this is crap you just can't pull," Jacobson said. "This is real world stuff."
Greg Costikyan -- Manifesto Games
Costikyan has a problem with the big three, who "make money even when you don't," artificially restrict competition, and act as a "second gatekeeper" that suppresses innovation and creativity. He laments how the game industry is the only closed platform media industry, and the blame for this state of affairs is Nintendo.
Costikyan goes back to 1985 and how Nintendo restricted the manufacturing of games and how their marketing policies stifled any form of competition. He took jabs at Howard Lincoln "whose inequities were rewarded at this year's DICE summit" and Nintendo Power for being the only marketing mouthpiece for game criticism.
Back to the present, he calls Xbox Live Arcade "the beginning of the end", and when the industry goes primarily on digital distribution, then the big three will control the only distribution channel for a develepor's game. You either pay or play by the console makers' rules.
This guy is also bashing Nintendo, but he actually has a point. Nintendo seems to have started something over twenty years ago that now could be what screws up the game industry all together. Are these online marketplaces that we're praising actually turning the game industry into the monopoly that Nintendo had in the 80's?
MOBILE NEWS; TRIP HAWKINS KEYNOTE AND N-GAGE ANNOUNCMENTS
A couple of keynote speeches were made relating to mobile games. Here's what has been going on:
-Trip Hawkins, EA Founder and CEO of Digital Chocolate, devilered his speech on how the Mobile platform could be a first-rate one. He began by saying that the current mobile games/entertainment business mdoel is not working, and that only 5% of users are successfully downloading these games. The market is not expanding and that could be the end of the beggining.
-Currently, about 10-15% of mobile games are original compared to 15% being licensed, which he calls an "abuse of the mobile ecosystem". He stresses that there is room for more originality and competition in the mobile space. Mobile can stand on its own with Hollywood and sports leagues. He points to Steve Jobs and the creation of iTunes as the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that the mobile industry needs, and also looks at PopCap games and NeoPets as areas that the established game industry never believed in.
-What it all comes down to is that we play and use media for the social benefit. Games and other media can serve as conversation starters; the idea is to have a shared experience. The current model, using mobile games just to kill time, is wrong. The idea of a social experience is everything, pointing to studies that show a connection between a person's social health and biological health. It's this social value that mobile gaming needs to leverage. Mobile has an advantage over the internet due to easier billing and that people are less concerned about sharing their info on mobile rather then over the internet.
-Some requirements Hawkings has for improving the mobile experience including a language filter, appropriate market segmentation (targeting content for different groups and different regions of the world), improving user interfaces, and using more user-generated content. The industry also needs to stop blaming the carrier deck for its problems. They also need to be more pro-active in the area of viral marketing/word of mouth, and address the problem of people thinking that mobile games are of poor quality.
-Hawkins believes that the mobile industry will be a $100 billion market soon, and mobile games will play a big role in it.
While Hawkings has high hopes for the mobile industry, Nokia was trying to get back into it with it's resurrected N-Gage.
-Nokia had many announcements to make, including the SNAP Mobile Compliance Testing Program, which is to help guarantee a consistent experience for all SNAP Mobile game players. "This program benefits both industry stakeholders and end users alike," explains Markus Huttunen, SNAP Mobile Manager, Nokia. "It ensures the uniform quality and functionality of the connected features in the mobile games that play on our platform. If poor quality games are released to the consumer, there is a risk of spoiling a market that is still in its infancy."
-On the developer and publishing side, they can self-test the tool which is provided for free, then send the game with an application for compliance with SNAP.
-Nokia also announced a number of supporters for the new N-Gage platform: GlGlu Mobile, Indiagames and THQ Wireless. Nokia also released the next generation software development kit (SDK 1.0) for the new N-Gage games platform for them to use.
And yet I still think they will fail miserably.
TIDBIT COMPANY NEWS
-Harmonix has announced that their next game, which will have the MTV Games label, is going to be published by EA. As for what this game actually is, all that Harmonix CEO Alex Rigopoulos says is "the project we're working on is by far, by far our most ambitious undertaking ever," stating that Guitar Hero was only the tip of the iceberg.
-LocoRoco director Tsutomo Kouno talked about the upcoming sequel for LocoRoco, giving a list of things he'd like to do for the game: physical calculations for drawing characters in the next game, incorporate advanced crowd aritificial intelligence, and even a new way to play the game altogether. Also, it's possible that this sequel could either be a PSP or PS3 game.
-Representatives from start-up company Emotiv Systems, headed by ex-Xbox evangelist Ed Fries, have released detaiils on their first product: a mind-controlled helmet to play games, codenamed "Project Epoc". The technology in the helmet is said to be the same kind used in the medical industry for electroencephalography. The headest will be available by 2008.
-Q Entertainment announced a new reworked version of their PSP game Every Extend Extra. The new game, titled Every Extend Extra Extreme, will be on Xbox Live Arcade sometime this year.
The Other Crap
411MANIA BECOMES FIRST NON-EMO/PEDOPHILE/SPAM USER ON MYSPACE
That's right folks, 411Mania and 411Games has started their own MySpaces. Click here to check out 411Mania's and click here for 411Games. What will we do with this new found power? Probably rant about stuff that'd get us fired if we posted them here (or even worse, Larry's "On Notice" Board), or some super secret contest with super secret prizes.
THINGS I'VE LEARNED FROM THE GDC
-The PS3 actually looks like it's worth buying.
-The Wii is the best piece of shit I've ever played.
-I need a wife like Miyamoto's.
-I should let Caleb know when he's doing a lousy job. After that, wait for check at unemployment line.
And that wraps it all up for this week. Since there was so much news from the Game Developers Conference I didn't get around to recapping the CGI, but instead of waiting for next week, I'll be posting it as this week's Gaming Trends (should I even call it Gaming Trends?). In the meantime, join our MySpace!
