GDC: Developers Beware

This week is GDC in San Fran and yes, I would love to be there. Not to play games but to geek out on the cool tech demos, and development conferences, etc.  A couple of things that have happened thus far:

Microsoft: XNA Creators Club. Microsoft unveiled that they will allow the XNA developing community to share games with 360 owners. Developers will be able to create XBL accounts to distribute their games, and be rated from their audience. A few games will be promoted to XBLA status in which Microsoft will work something out with the developers to ensure the game stays exclusive to their platform.  You can check more out with the Microsoft Dreamspark if you want to get started developing your own download-able game. Even if you don’t and you are a student, you can download some pretty sweet utilities for FREE from Microsoft!

Sony: PhyreEngine was presented as a discussion at GDC. It is an open set of libraries and special tools for developing on the PS3. Some games to note as being related to the “SDK” is Flow, Gripshift, and DiRT.

Insomniac:  Well, marked as my favorite developer and know for their sense of giving back, Insomniac today announced the launch of FREE PS3 tools, scripts, and more for the developer community. Nocturnal is the project name. Like their R&D Tech Page, Insomniac hopes to help other developers developing for the PS3 by providing tools to help them overcome the challenges they face.  Sony is known for sharing engine tech between it’s various 1st and 2nd party studios, but it is glad to see Insomniac, who is independent, share this with the community because there are some studios that REALLY NEED IT!

~ by tirminyl on February 21, 2008.