The Select and Start News Report: 02.25.08
Posted by Vincent Chiucchi on 02.25.2008
Lots of videos and news from the Game Developers Conference last week. Microsoft's Keynote, The GDC Awards, a sequel to Portal announced, and more.
Welcome to the Select and Starts News Report, currently ranked 11th in the United 411Games Association.
Big News
TOSHIBA ANNOUNCES DEATH OF HD-DVD; WHAT IT MEANS FOR SONY AND MICROSOFT [credit: Gamasutra, GameDaily, Evil Avatar, Kotaku]
We all pretty much saw it coming, but Toshiba officially announced last week that it will completely cease it's HD-DVD business by the end of March. They will still provide service for those with HD-DVD players or add-ons, but it's unknown for how long they'll do so. The day before the announcement, Microsoft said that the demise of HD-DVD will have no material impact on the Xbox 360, but they will be withdrawing from HD-DVD. They will continue to provide standard product and warranty support for all Xbox 360 HD DVD Players in the market. With the whole "We might consider Blu-Ray" talks that have been going on for a few weeks, it's possible Xbox 360 could wind up making a Blu-Ray add-on.
Does this mean that PS3 sales are going to sky rocket and Sony will see billions of profit again? According to analysts at Bloomberg, since Sony has to split it's royalties with other members of Blu-Ray, including rivals Samsung and Panasonic, Sony isn't going to make a lot of profit. They also point out how Victor Co. (JVC) isn't as big as they were back in 1980, even though they won the format war with VHS over Betamax.
Sounds like bad news, but Sony is such a huge company I'm pretty sure Sony isn't going to fall to the wayside.
PORTAL GETS A SEQUEL FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ARE STILL ALIVE [credit: ActionTrip, Eurogamer, Blue's News, NextGeneration, Destructoid]
Portal, a game that was developed with limited time and capabilities and was released as part of a Half-Life 2 package, became the biggest surprise hit of 2007. But would all that huge success mean that we would see it again with a sequel? Portal's lead designer Kimberly Swift has stated on G4TV that "Doug Lombardi, who is our lead marketing director at Valve, has announced Portal 2."
Personally I think this is awesome, and I doubt Valve will somehow completely screw it up.
In other Portal related news, the hit song "Still Alive" by Jonathan Coulton will become a downloadable song for Rock Band. No specific date as to when it'll be available.
And in even more Portal related news...
PORTAL AND BIOSHOCK COME OUT AS BIG WINNERS [credit: Gamasutra, GameSpot]
...it won the Game Of The Year award in the 8th Annual Games Developers Conference Awards. Along with the GotY award, Portal also won for Innovation and Best Game Design. 2K Boston's BioShock was also a big winner, taking home three awards: Best Visual Art, Best Writing, and Best Audio.
The following is the complete list of winners along with the recipients
2007 Best Game Design
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Realm Lovejoy, Paul Graham
2007 Best Visual Art
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Scott Sinclair, Shawn Robertson, Andrew James
2007 Best Technology
Crysis (Crytek/Electronic Arts)
Cevat Yerli, Douglas Binks, Timur Davidenko, Martin Mittring
2007 Best Writing
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Ken Levine, Emily Ridgway, Joe McDonagh, Susan O'Connor
2007 Best Audio
BioShock (2K Boston/2K Australia / 2K Games)
Eric Brosius, Pat Balthrop, Emily Ridgway, Justin Mullins
2007 Best Debut
Crackdown (Real Time Worlds / Microsoft Game Studios)
Ramon Gonzalez, Violetta Sanchez, Rafael Diaz, Jose Guerra
2007 Innovation
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw
2007 Best Handheld Game
The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass (Nintendo / Nintendo)
Eiji Aonuma
2007 Best Downloadable Game
Flow (thatgamecompany / Sony Computer Entertainment)
Kellee Santiago, Jenova Chen, Martin Middleton, Hao Cui, John Edwards,
Nick Clark
2007 Game of the Year
Portal (Valve)
Kim Swift, Erik Wolpaw
Lifetime Achievement Award
Sid Meier
Pioneer Award
Ralph Baer
Ambassador Award
Jason Della Rocca
MICROSOFT KEYNOTE NOTES [credit: 1UP, Joystiq]
Here's a quick summary of Microsoft's Keynote Address from the GDC.
-First off, the raw numbers: One billion Xbox 360 Achievements have been unlocked, over $250 million was spent on Xbox Live Arcade games, and that the numbers of Halo 3 videos uploaded on the Bungie community is greater then the number of videos uploaded on YouTube on a daily basis.
-On XNA: XNA architect Chris Satchel says there have been 800,000 downloads of the XNA Studio software to date, and Microsoft is working with over 400 universities to get the software to students. Newly announced at the show was the Xbox Live Community Games. Community Games developers will have a "creator identity" which works somewhat like a GamerTag. You can submit games, write up profiles describing them, and once Microsoft approves of the game, the game will be available on Xbox Live. They then show off some of the games, such as a racing game called Jelly Car, a zombie shoot-em-up called Little Gamers, and a flower planting game called Culture. XNA Games can be played on the PC, the Xbox 360, and now the Zune.
-Demos: They show off a tech demo for Gears of War 2 on how improved the game looks. Then they showed Ninja Gaiden II gameplay running off an actual Xbox 360. You can check out the video of this below. The game will be released in North America on June 3rd. Next Peter Molyneux comes out to talk about Fable 2. You can earn money by playing an XBLA game called "Keystone", some kind of cross between roulette and craps. Keystone will be released a few weeks before Fable 2. A big feature for Fable 2 is the "Dynamic Co-op", where another player can join up with you at any time. Later Peter Molyneux takes his female character back home where she shoots her husband.
-Gears of War 2: They show off another teaser for Gears of War 2, which ends with Cliffy B busting out behind a screen with a chainsaw gun. He announces the game will be bigger, better, more badass, and out in November 2008 only for Xbox 360. Sadly that's all he had to say.
NINTENDO TO START PAY-TO-PLAY ONLINE PROGRAM [credit: Next Generation, Voodoo Extreme, ShackNews, Destructoid]
Programming project team leader Takashi Aoyama announced that Nintendo will be starting a new progman called "Wi-Fi Connection Pay & Play" for certain Wii titles. What titles or how exactly this system will work has not yet been revealed. Wii games that will have this program will have a new red mark on their box to indicate the Pay to Play.
Why do I have the feeling this is mostly going to apply to third-party games, while Nintendo games like Smash Bros. remains for free further causing alienation of third-party companies? Maybe it's because I don't like paying to play online. Speaking of online Wii games...when is that console actually getting some?
THE GAME DESIGNERS RANT [credit: Gamespot]
A tradition at GDC is to have a panel of Game Designers rant about what exactly is pissing them off in the current state of gaming.
Clint Hocking from Ubisoft ranted about the lack of meaningful content in best-selling games. He said, "Why don't we make games that challenge people? Why can't we make a game that matters? Why the **** don't we learn from these smaller games and plug them into our blockbusters? Why isn't Call of Duty--why can't it actually be about duty? Why isn't Medal of Honor about honour? "[It's] not surprising this item fetishism it's not surprising that the most meaningful relationship this year in AAA games is with a ****ing cube."
Because maybe we just want to play these games to, you know, have fun?
Jonathan Mak of Queasy Games just gave out balloons and party gear and picked a random audience member to do a rant, though she actually had nothing to rant about. Okay...
Jane McGonigal from Avant Game ranted about how the real world sucks compared to video games. "My rant is about the fact that reality is broken and it's our responsibility to fix it. We need a real world as good as a game." She then gave examples of games that can take everyday chores and turn them into experience points in an RPG.
Wow. The real world sucks compared to video games? I haven't noticed.
Next was Chris Hecker, who last year made some headlines for talking about the Wii was a piece of shit and was "just two GameCube's duct taped together", though later he did apologize. This year he continued to rant about how games need to be treated as an art form. "I stand by my apology last year. The reason I'm still into ranting is because complacency equals death. Games could become the eminent art form of the 21st century, but on the current trajectory we're going I'm not sure we're going to get there."
Let's face it. As long as there are networks like Fox News around and "everyone's favorite lawyer" getting undeserved air time, video games aren't going to get enough respect to be treated as an art form. It's hard to get video games respected about anything.
Jenova Chen from That Game Company (what game company?) who wants more adult content in video games. "I want more mature content for people who are grown up like us and still want to play games. We don't need any more Three Little Pigs; we need more The Little Prince."
Except Fox News and Rockstar will continue to ruin it for the rest of us.
Last up was Daniel James from Three Rings, who said he was happy with everything and after the session was off to get "very, very drunk."
Tidbit News
-Officials from Electronic Arts have announced that the company has teamed up with Swedish developer Starbreeze Studios to "reinvent one of EA's most acclaimed classic franchises". Anyone got a clue as to what it might possibly be? [credit: Gamasutra]
-Devil May Cry 4 has now reached the two million mark in copies shipped worldwide. [credit: GameDaily, Gamasutra]
-Telltale Games announced they are working on an episodic series for the WiiWare service, and no, it's not Sam and Max. [credit: Kotaku]
-Square Enix announced a new game that will be available on the Nintendo WiiWare service, called "final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As a King". The game is NOT an RPG, but rather plays somewhat like Sim City. You run a city, send people out to explore and do battle, and using the information and things gathered from those battles, build your city better. The game will be out in Japan by March; no American and European release dates yet. [credit: GameSpot, Gamasutra]
-British mag Xbox World 360 announced that they talk about their hands-on impressions of the XBLA version of Goldeneye, which as of now remains in limbo over financial issues. Will this game ever see the light of day? Keep hope alive gamers! [credit: Joystiq, Evil Avatar]
-Trademork is reporting that Activision recently filed a trademark for something called DJ Hero. Whether this means a future game announcement in the works or just Activision simply protecting their IP remains a mystery. [credit: GameDaily]
Gaming Calendar
February 26th - Dragon Quest Swords: The Masked Queen and the Tower of Mirrors to be released
March 4th
-Army of Two to be released
-God of war: Chains of Olympus to be released
March 9th - Super Smash Bros. Brawl to be released
March 11th
-Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates to be released
-Condemned 2 to be released
March 25th - FFVII: Crisis Core to be released
April 4th - Myst Online to be discontinued
April 22nd - The World Ends With You to be released
April 25th - Grand Theft Auto IV to be released
May 2008
-Mass Effect gets ported to the PC
-R-Type Command to be released
NEW: May 12th - WiiWare Service to be launched
NEW: May 19th - Wii Fit to be released
NEW: June 3rd - Ninja Gaiden II to be released
June 2008 - Guitar Hero: Aerosmith to be released
Spring 2008:
-Heroes of Might and Magic Kingdoms to be released
-Death Jr.: Root of Evil to be released
2nd Quarter 2008 - Metal Gear Solid 4 to be released
June 28-29 - Blizzard's Worldwide Invitational convention to be held
September 2008 - LittleBigPlanet to be released
September 7th - Spore to be released
October 3-5 - E for All 2008 to be held
October 9-13 - The Tokyo Game Show 2008 to be held
NEW: November 2008 - Gears of War 2 to be released
Fall 2008 - Resistance: Fall of Man 2 to be released
The Bible is worse then Grand Theft Auto
This segment is brought to you by "Everyone's favorite lawyer", who is currently threatening to sue Northern Illinois University. Because if there's anything a school deserves when coping with the death of students from a shooting, it's a lawsuit! And by Fox News, who make sure to include the words "Video gamers" into any headline involving the death of someone. So what if video games have little to do with the actual truth?
This week comes from Daniel 3. This is about how Nebuchadnezzar tries to burn Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to death because they don't worship his God and the giant gold statue of that God. He throws them into a furnace, only for all three to actually survive. After witnessing this miracle, Nebuchadnezzar had this to say:
Daniel 3 3:29 Therefore I make a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.
Translation: Hey, that's kind of like how "Everyone's favorite lawyer" will sue anybody for says anything bad about him! I guess I should start doing the same thing. From now on, I'm going to brutally kill anyone who says anything bad about Dragonball Z. Thanks for the inspiration Bible!
The New...er...old EA Franchise? My money is on Road Rash, done Burnout style.
Posted By: Todd (Guest) on February 25, 2008 at 01:51 PM
People like you make me sick! You have to go and bash other people's beliefs (i.e. The Bible) just because you can't think of anything else to rant about! You're pathetic! Grow up!
Posted By: Spyke (Guest) on February 25, 2008 at 04:42 PM
