Supreme Commander 2 in Development

November 12, 2008

In an effort to increase their western development Square Enix has partnered with Gas Powered Games to bring Supreme Commander 2 to the masses.  Square Enix has always performed well in their home market of Japan but they have been taking efforts to bring their name and development to the United States and Europe.

“We see great opportunities in European and North American markets, both of which are expected to be maintaining sustainable growth over these coming years,” commented Yoichi Wada, president of Square Enix.

“Therefore, it is crucial we create alliances with proven developers such as Gas Powered Games in order to serve these significant markets better by providing products and services in tune with customer tastes.”

Chris Taylor is the founder of Gas Powered Games who is best known for the Dungeon Siege series.  Supreme Commander was fairly well received so it seems like a decent enough idea for Square Enix to sign Gas Powered Games as their first western developer.  Who wouldn’t get excited for more massive mech battles?

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Sony Takes You Back to School

June 8, 2008

PS2 PSP Dev Kits

In an effort to aid game development at the college level, Sony has instituted the PlayStation-edu program. Here’s what you can expect:

PlayStation-edu is a program for universities and colleges to get access to PS2 and PSP development kits…the same ones that professional developers use to make the games you love to play. You get the development software, the hardware, and the SDK to learn and experiment with. SCEA wants to make sure that students who are graduating from college are ready to program on PlayStation hardware and that means getting it into your hands.

So normal students won’t be able to pick this up. Your computer science department will have to get on board and actually purchase the dev kits. It’s a great way for the younger crowd to get experience in game development before graduating and moving on.

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Forza Devs Could Make the Next Project Gotham

May 24, 2008

pgr41.jpg

Since Bizarre is now part of Activision, they won’t be handling the development on future Project Gotham Racing titles. In fact, they already finished up everything for PGR4, so they’re all done with Microsoft’s racing franchise. So who might take over? Turn 10, the internal studio at Microsoft who handles Forza might get the job. According to an interview with Shane Kim:

You know, we have a great internal racing studio in Turn 10, the creators of Forza Motorsport. And our goal is to roll the studio so that they can do more creative execution within the racing space. So you can imagine a future where they would develop a new version of Project Gotham Racing. We don’t have anything concrete there, and I do think that after four versions of PGR, it’s really important for us to take a fresh creative approach to it and to really think about what we want the next version of PGR to be if we do that.

I think taking a new approach to the series is a great idea. I’d love to see some new innovation with Gotham. I loved PGR2 and 3, but PGR4 seemed like just another game in the series. We’ll see what happens.

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Top Spin 3 Developer Q&A

May 10, 2008

Top Spin 3 Screen 1

I got to spend a little bit of time today talking with Anthony DeLuca, the Producer for 2K Sports upcoming Top Spin 3. We discussed a lot of topics surrounding the game’s development and upcoming release.

In the eyes of the development team, tennis games were starting to become static and they wanted a more fluid gameplay to complement playing tennis is real life. Top Spin 3 does this as it more realistically portrays what you are doing on screen with the inputs you give on the controller. New methods of control with the right analog stick have been implemented to give a more fluid feel to the game. For the Wii, how hard you swing and the angle of the Wii remote determines your shot type and speed, which is pretty cool.

Hit the jump for more »

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Insomniac Providing Free Development Tools

February 22, 2008

Source Code

Hot off the heals of Sony’s PhyreEngine announcement, Insomniac is providing a free library of development tools, labeled Nocturnal Initiative.

“The Nocturnal initiative is designed to encourage greater communication and information sharing among the development community because it will ultimately enable us all to create better games at a lower development cost,” said Mike Acton, engine director, Insomniac Games. “And, in the end, it’s all about making great games.”

Essentially, Insomniac is giving other developers access to their source code in an effect to expedite and reduce the cost of game development, mainly on the PS3. This can only be good for gamers out there, as this new sharing of information at no cost will ultimately mean better games in your living room. Kudos to the industry players stepping up here!

Hit the jump for more »

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Sony Unveils PhyreEngine for Free Cross-Platform Development

February 21, 2008

PhyreEngine

In what could be one of the biggest quiet announcements of GDC, Sony is making their PhyreEngine free to all developers. In case you don’t know, the PhyreEngine is a graphics optimized for multi-core systems that run on OpenGL or Direct3D.

According the presentation, the package includes full documentation, “70+ samples” and “full source code and artwork” for a few sample game templates. And all that’s required to get your game running on the PS3 is a “simple recompile.” It works with standard tools like Maya & Max exporters as well as Bullet, Havok, and Ageia Physics engines. There’s already a few games on the market using the PhyreEngine cross-platform, including DiRT, fl0w, and GripShift.

So what does this really mean? Well, Sony’s free development tools are aiding the development of games for PC and Xbox 360, as well as their own console. Since a lot of developers have been neglecting PS3, making it easier for them to develop games in a single environment for release on all platforms is a great idea.

More news is expected in the coming days, weeks, and months on PhyreEngine as Sony is dubbing it “the new hotness.”

[via Joystiq]

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EA Still Struggling With PS3

February 1, 2008

PS3 Horizontal

Development for the PS3 seems to still be a struggle over at EA, as they acknowledged they’re having trouble when using the Xbox 360 as the lead platform. As discussed during Thursday’s conference call:

“But in circumstances where we either led with the Xbox 360 or ran parallel production, for the most part, we’re still experiencing some delay on the PS3. It’s a little bit more of a challenging development environment for us.

“It’s probably only a third of a problem for us as it was [nine months ago]. But there still remains some catching up to do on the engineering side for the PS3.”

Hopefully EA and other developers get their hands around coding games for Sony’s console. If you remember, the PS2 had similar issues. Hopefully Sony steps up their developer tools to make it easier for everyone to bring their games to the PS3.

[via NextGen]

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Warhawk Patchs in the Works

October 22, 2007

Warhawk Screen

Warhawk will be seeing two patches in the near future on the PS3. The first patch, v1.1, will be hitting a console near you in the very near future. This patch will introduce both server-side and client-side fixes for the game. Here’s what you can expect fixed in v1.1:

Server-side updates
* Stat database stability improvements
* Improved server stability
* Max Clan limit changed from 32 to 64
* Viral Rank-up bug fixed and correct for players that were accidentally ranked up.
* “Time-in-Vehicle” Stats fixed so certain awards can now be granted properly.

Client-side updates for Patch v1.1
* Stat connection, fetch/post fixes
* Significantly improved client connection stability
* Quad “????” Ping display bug fixed.
* Added support for Player-Ranked Servers.
* Game synchronization fixes due to fluctuating network conditions (packet-drop).
* Crash fixes for end of game and split screen.

Hit the jump for more »

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Capcom Announces Bionic Commando

October 16, 2007

Bionic Commando Screenshot

Capcom had a countdown on their site recently. It was widely speculated this would be for a new Bionic Commando game. The rumors were right. In a press release issued today, Capcom announced a new game from the Bionic Commando franchise will be gracing the PS3, Xbox 360, and PC.

Taking its inspiration from its 8-bit namesake released on the Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1988, Bionic Commando features Nathan Spencer (voiced by former lead singer of Faith No More, Mike Patton), a government operative who represents the ultimate fusion of man and machine. After distinguishing himself in a fierce conflict against the Imperials, Spencer is betrayed and falsely imprisoned by the very people he unquestioningly served.

I was a big fan of Bionic Commando back in the day. Capcom’s recent next-gen offerings have been pretty good too. Put both together, and you have a hit game. Hopefully that’s how it turns out.

Hit the jump for more »

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Intel Puchases Havok

September 17, 2007

Havok Engine

Intel, the chip making giant, has entered into an agreement to purchase Havok, the creators of the ever popular physics engine for a reported $21 million.

If you haven’t heard of Havok, it’s the physics engine behind some of the biggest games on the market. Recent big titles include Stranglehold, BioShock, and Oblivion. What many people don’t know is the same company produces an engine to create special effects in movies, which was used in blockbuster titles like The Matrix.

No idea yet how this in going to impact future game development with the Havok engine, but there’s some really smart people over at Intel that could really take it to the next level.

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