The Best of GDC: Mid-week
If you’re like me, you are sitting on the sidelines this week as the big boys get to run around the Game Developers’ Conference in San Francisco this week. I’ve been keeping up with the announcements, and want to share with you my favorite things that have been revealed so far this week.
Havok Announces AI Development
Havok, the company whose logo you see on almost any opening screen of an FPS these days, got there by developing some wicked ragdoll physics. Back when Havok first started to license their software to developers, I can remember the oos and ahs from geeks’ rooms up and down the hall at college. Havok certainly has the corner on the market, having their SDK licensed in more than 150 computer games since they first launched it in 2000.
With all that success, it seems that Havok has decided to develop some artificial intelligence (AI) software as well. If the company responsible for making falling bodies look like falling bodies should can make video game enemies think like enemies should, we may be in for a bit more of a challenge. With cover systems, teamwork and other “tactical strategy” that game developers have been writing in to their own games as AI, it will be interesting to see what Havok can bring to the table that hasn’t been employed. As autonomous as developers can make AI, it still has to follow a set of rules that have been initiated. Unless Havok is also developing some sort of biological computer to coincide with the release that can grow, develop and evolve, we may not see much of an advancement.
OnLive – Gaming From the “Cloud” or The Hotel Game System Replacement
A rather ambitious and promising new device hopes to allow gamers to play any video game that is streamed to their PC, Mac or TV over a broadband connection. The device is rather small, and only features a few A/V outputs and an ethernet connection in. The idea is that the games will be processed at a computer farm with some extremely high-powered rigs doing the data crunching and video compression for streaming the content. Similar ideas have been pitched before (remember the Phantom?), but haven’t ever seen any fruition. OnLive hopes to take that idea and produce a working, feasible model.
In a discussion with Grundy, we talked about this device. Sure, it seems like an absolutely amazing technology, and probably something that could eventually happen someday, but there are so many limitations with it right now. If XBLA titles were already streaming (Peggle or Braid probably wouldn’t need too much bandwidth or processing power to stream to everyone), wrapping my head around Crysis would be a bit easier. However, considering that consumer-class PCs are just beginning to handle Crysis properly, the idea of it streaming from a central server boggles my mind. Add the challenge of bandwidth caps to the equation (for HD display, OnLive requires 5Mbps and Comcast, my provider, has a 250 GB monthly cap), and it doesn’t seem like this is a service that gamers can take advantage of.
So where does that put OnLive? Have you ever stayed at a hotel that has some old classic knockoffs that you can order to play on the chinsy TV in your room? I think OnLive would be perfect for that application. You can stream some of your favorite titles (OnLive does have support from some of the players in the industry), but you aren’t pushing your bandwidth cap. I don’t anticipate finding this in your run-down mom-and-pop hotel, but maybe starting at a Holiday Inn and on up from there.
E74 Error on Xbox 360
Okay, so not officially a part of GDC, but certainly something that is eclipsing anything Microsoft has to say about the 360 this week. Now that the RRoD issue has been addressed (not put to bed, but addressed nonetheless) to the satisfaction of almost everyone, we have a new little error to worry about – E74. Many a rumor has been discussed as to the true origin of the latest fault many 360 owners have experienced over the last several months – NXE is to blame, it is a recode for the RRoD error that was quietly pushed through as a console update, signs of the endtimes – but Microsoft hasn’t addressed this latest issue to the satisfaction of the community. Because of this, almost every post about MS’s involvements at GDC have had a little bit of E74 flavor involved.
It’s no lie – I’m a big fan of the 360. I wouldn’t say that I’m a fanboy or an Xbot (you might), but I prefer it over the Wii (had one and thought it was boring for single player and the community sucked at the time) and the PS3 (too expensive at launch and not enough exclusives to catch my interest). However, my 360 has been acting quite flaky lately, and I fear every time it fires up. Will I fall victim to the latest of a device malfunction? Will I be one of the many who have suffered through the process of RRoD with only the solace of knowing their console was covered, but now face having to replace the console out of pocket because this new issue isn’t covered?
Oh, Major, say it ain’t so. Give us a ray of hope. Show us the light – just not the red one in the bottom right quadrant.
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