In this episode, GameJew goes on the hunt-down for Nintendo’s head whimsicality-inducer Miyamoto at GDC 2007. GameJew, don’t you know that Miyamoto is surrounded by cybernetic vat-grown ninjas? You could have been sliced to bits! GameJew Sings to Miyamoto [GameJew] → Read More
The GDC floor is a barren wasteland in regards to hardware. I’ve scoured it back-and-forth and come across few items worth reporting. Most of the physical things on display are worthless baubles, but there are at least a few things worth mentioning. One such item is the Novint Falcon. It looks rather stupid, and I’m not sure how useful it’ll be in the long run, but it is an impressive novelty nonetheless. → Read More
If you loved the preview of the Playstation Home we gave you yesterday and want to know more about it then check out the official Beta site. You’ll need to check it everyday because registration hasn’t started and they will surely go quick. Beta Trial [via Giz] → Read More
http://gamevideos.com:80/swf/gamevideos11.swf?embedded=1&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&src=http://gamevideos.com:80/video/videoListXML%3Fid%3D9890%26ordinal%3D1173393229698%26adPlay%3Dfalse Galaxy is a little aged by now but it still looks hot. I still feel a little funny over Paper Mario, though, like my pants are too tight. → Read More
AMD’s next-generation of mobile graphics parts will be pretty badass thanks to the suite of tools that were announced today. Rendermonkey 1.7 is the most notable tool as it’s a shader tool that allows developers to write graphics code for a variety of devices that support OpenVG 1.0, OpenGL 2.0 and Unified Shader Architecture technologies. Unified Shader Architecture is a big deal because it’s one of the biggest selling points of the Xbox 360. It’s a huge plus that AMD will be supporting these technologies for upcoming mobile parts. Rendermonkey is already widely used and it will allow for an easy transfer of older titles that have AMD’s new Imageon processors. Update Read on for details. → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=17614 Straight outta GDC we have an odd new Zelda game for the DS. The Phantom Hourglass includes multi-player game play with some basic capture-the-flag action. I’m not amazed, but I do like me some Zelda. Via GameTrailers → Read More
Emotiv is a company I expect we’ll be hearing a lot more about soon. It made news yesterday with a formal announcement of its Project Epoc, a developmental technology that interpolates electrical signals emitted by the brain and converts them into actions on a computer. I had been communicating with Emotiv going into GDC and as fate would have it, my meeting was scheduled for shortly after the press release began to circulate. First let me give you a little perspective on the landscape of brainwave measuring controllers. For a long time I have imagined a day when gaming would be controlled by body motion suits, brainwave headsets, all the stuff you wish you had from your favorite Sci-Fi film. Over the years I’ve seen and experienced a multitude of products that made claims similar, or identical, to Emotiv and its Epoc. Given those experiences, I was quite skeptical entering our meeting yesterday morning morning. → Read More
Since Blake is apparently taking a cat nap and watching COLT flicks at GDC, I’d like to bring something to your attention. They had a round of talks at GDC called “Burning Mad – A Game Publisher’s Rant.” Basically, a select number of publishers and developers got to scream about whatever they hate. When Chris Hecker of the Spore team got his turn, he went on a crazy tirade on how Nintendo sucks. Chris has declared that “The Wii is a piece of shit!” and that Nintendo should make a console that doesn’t “suck ass”. Why is Chris so frustrated? The craptastic Wii’s processing power isn’t sufficient enough to develop next-gen games on and Nintendo only wants to make “fun” games. And did you know Nintendo just doesn’t see video games as art? Terrible! Where do I sign up for the Chris Hecker fanclub? Spore developer lambastes Wii [Games Are Fun] → Read More
http://www.gametrailers.com/remote_wrap.php?mid=17559 Here’s a clip of Playstation Home in action, just for you. This is either the most amazing thing in the world or another misstep. I hope to the God of War that Sony gets this right and doesn’t make Second Life 1.5. [via Matt Hickey's Genius via Kotaku] → Read More
Yarg. Such a busy morning after the lackluster start of GDC 2007. Everything was going down this morning. The keynote, meetings, general shenanigans. I rushed in early to catch demos of products from Emotiv (very cool and full impressions coming soon), AMD and others. Before I get to all of those in forthcoming posts, let me say a few words about the keynote that took place. → Read More
The second day of GDC is underway and there are panels galore. None of which are particularly relevant to the CG shtick. I’ve planted myself in the press room and am attempting to update the site as the server smokes and flames and sputters toward oblivion after getting two front page diggs. My highlights yesterday were small, but interesting. There is little in the way of gadget and hardware interests starting until tomorrow. On Monday, I did sit in on a cool panel conducted by Mobile Radicals. Using Nokia 5500 phones, the team was able to utilize the phone’s accelerometer for various tack and yaw functions. They also utilized RFID phones for some pretty intriguing mixed reality games. The most notable of the games was a real-world Pac-Man game called Pac-Lan. Using RFID tags on players and tags positioned around a pedestrian area, they were able to make the game happen in the real-world. There was a Pac-Man and ghosts and pellets all existing simultaneously in the real-world and online. → Read More
Phil Harrison’s GDC 2007 keynote is a couple days away, but DevelopersHeart from the NeoSeeker forum has been doing some snooping and giving the rest of us some insight on what to expect. These are rumors and/or speculations, so we’ll take it with a grain of salt. → Read More
Did you know that the NVIDIA GoForce 5500 mobile GPU is capable of running Quake 3 at full specs on a cell phone? I didn’t and it kind of weirds me out. I remember back when Quake 3 first came out. The system requirements were so demanding that I had to do a full overhaul of my computer. Now it can run on a cell phone with all of its features enabled. Crazy talk. → Read More
I set foot in the beautiful Moscone Center here in sunny San Francisco about 20 minutes ago. After devouring a bagel, I feel my blood sugar is high enough to risk exerting the energy to update you all on the happenings here. I’ll be roving the scene evading mouth-breathers and looking for all things interesting at this year’s GDC. There are a lot of crazy gaming technologies on the horizon, so there is bound to be something cool here. So I’ll be your drunken guide through the next few days of this thing. As always, if there is anything going down here that you all would like to know more about, let me know and I’ll do my best to seek it out specifically. Oh and unlike our CES disaster, this time I have WWAN so I won’t be thwarted by shoddy convention WiFi. Huzzah! Over and out. → Read More
The crack CrunchGear team is on the ground and headed all over the world to grab the latest and greatest for you, our kind readers. Blake is at the GDC and Josh is at PMA this week then we’ve got Blake and I at CTIA in sunny Orlando, Florida. Finally, we’ve got a stringer rocking CeBIT in sunny Germany where we expect big things out of the strudel industry. That said, things might get a little hectic around here and — as evidenced by the above picture at some trade show I’ve since forgotten — angry. We’ll try to tone down our pain and focus more on the launches, but if someone posts an expletive-filled rant about moronic booth staffers or fat guys wearing fishing vests and hogging three network connections in the press room, I won’t stop them. Remember: CrunchGear — flying coach, eating bad food, and being trampled by freebie-hunting vendors… so you don’t have to. → Read More
