Diablo III begins with Deckard Cain voicing over a prophecy of the “End of Days.” Accompanying that narration is an awesome cinematic of a drawing on paper animating and showing the climactic clash between the armies of Heaven and Hell.
Quantic Dream has made jaws drop in the past with their stunning technical demonstrations, but they’ve honestly outdone themselves at GDC 2012. A demo called “Kara” is a short film that, while playing to certain sci-fi stereotypes, manages to convey real emotions in a short time with some breathtaking graphics . . . all running on a PS3.
Those familiar with the Tekken and Street Fighter series know that the “Devil Gene” and “Satsui no Hadou” plague the main characters of both franchises. In this Chris Cowan directed and Ayzenberg Group produced short film, the dark powers become aware of each other, leading to an inevitable and dynamic clash!
For sports fans, it’s a truly existential question: The first two days of March Madness are among the sporting year’s best, but how do you get out of work Calling in sick is transparent, and vacation days are mighty precious to use up for marathon TV-watching sessions. Now, there’s a new option — having basketball legend Shaquille O’Neal call your boss to say the two of you are busy “hitting the beach” or “getting a style makeover.” That’s the idea behind “Shaq’s Big Excuse,” a March Madness-themed Facebook promotion by the Dove Men+Care grooming brand. To employ Shaq, just visit the brand’s Facebook Page, then click on the “Shaq’s Big Excuse” tab. There, you’ll find a range of options letting you stitch together the ultimate boss-juking, basketball-watching excuse, all in Shaq’s signature intonations. Lastly, enter your phone number and boss’s digits, and have Shaq make the call!
Peter Molyneux has confirmed that he is departing Microsoft and Lionhead to work on mobile games. The former Creative Director of Microsoft Game Studios Europe will help finish work on Fable: The Journey before shifting his full attention over to his new studio.
“I have left the lovely amazing Microsoft and Lionhead,” tweeted the Fable, Populous, Black & White and Syndicate designer. “Now for something really amazing, scary and brave a new company called 22 Cans.”
Source: Twitter
Gareth Davis, platform manager for games at Facebook, talked about best practices for game developers at GDC. He indicated that of Facebook’s 425 million mobile users, 60+ million of those people have discovered games and apps through mobile devices.
Davis argued that app discovery is a large part of the Facebook mobile platform. He noted that Facebook has simplified mobile billing allowing in-game payments for social games to be processed in just one or two steps, allowing the amount to show up on the user’s carrier bill.
The Facebook mobile games team has been expanded to over 40 people and investment continues in native applications. Also, Facebook has already paid out over $1.4 billion to app developers.
While Facebook is on over 2,500 different mobile devices, it ensures that the same API, the same set of social channels and the same distribution is used across all devices. Davis also noted that the company’s analytics are hugely important for making social games work.
Properly monetizing the game involves a variety of virtual goods, from cheap items for casual players to expensive stuff for the “whales” to buy. Davis added that Facebook users are now 70 percent international and so game designs should take that audience into account, especially the growing Asian markets.
Source: GI.biz
The next SimCity is being built with an impressive engine called GlassBox. While the engine is designed to impressively and realistically display something akin to a real-life city, it was also “built to be moddable.”
“We’re huge fans of our modding community,” said creative director Ocean Quigley to a GDC audience. “We know modding is hugely important to our community. We know the reason why people are still playing SimCity 4 ten years later is because the modding community has kept it alive. GlassBox is built to be moddable, but beyond that we haven’t announced anything.”
Source: Shacknews
Apple has unveiled its new iPad model, that will have a ‘Retina Display’ with a pixel density of 264ppi. The tablet has a A5X mobile chip with a new quad-core graphics processor that Apple claims is four times as fast as the Tegra 3.
“The new iPad has a Retina Display, 2048×1536,” explained Senior VP of worldwide marketing Phil Schiller. “The best mobile display that has ever shipped.”
The new iPad also has a iSight camera, same as the camera built into the iPhone 4S, that includes auto-exposure, auto-focus, and 5 megapixel backside-illuminated sensor with 1080p video. As far as pricing for the new iPad goes, the 16GB model will go for $499, 32GB for $599, and 64GB for $699 and will arrive on March 16.
Sony has reportedly shipped 10.5 million units of its Move peripheral worldwide. Sony developer support engineer Gabe Ahn said that this number represents units shipped to retailers rather than sold, and includes sales of both Move and Navigation Controllers.
Ahn believes the Move’s attach rate is at one for every six PS3 consoles. However, 62 million PS3 consoles had been sold as of December 31 2011, which would mean that around 10 million sales of the Move controller would have had to have occurred, meaning Ahn’s math is likely off.
Source: IGN
Epic Games and NCsoft recently announced that the have signed a licensing agreement for Unreal Engine 3. Most prominently, upcoming MMO Blade and Soul is being made using Epic’s middleware.
“It has been possible for us to harness all our energy and put it toward the creativity of the games themselves by developing Lineage II and Blade and Soul with Unreal Engine,” said Hyungjun Kim, vice president of NCsoft. “I believe we can pull the most out of the engine through the know-how that has accumulated through our experience with this superior game engine.”
“Equipping the brilliant creative minds at NCsoft with cutting-edge tools and features will bring even more visually stunning, high-quality entertainment to millions of players,” said Ray Park, territory manager of Epic Games Korea. “Already having worked more than a decade with NCsoft, we look forward to continuing our close cooperation with them for many more years to come.”
