Further supporting its Game 3.0 vision, Sony has unveiled PS3 Home, a next-generation 3D online community. The service will let users create their own avatar and explore a real-time virtual community to interact, communicate, join online games, shop and share content with other PS3 users. Taking bits from Second Life, Xbox Live and Nintendo”s Mii, the service will launch this Fall and will be completely free for PS3 owners.

With an avatar uniquely customized according to each user”s preference, users can explore the 3D community that is Home – a sleek, modern environment featuring spacious common areas; custom spaces dedicated to specific games; and personal apartments. Each user is assigned an apartment in Home where they can invite others to join them as they show off their own style in an area they can personalize themselves with furniture, art and other items – even a different view from their windows. They can also show their personal video, pictures and other digital media content found on their PS3 hard drives in their apartments. Very rich interactive communication with others is achieved through built in text, audio and video chat, along with sophisticated emotional animations for each character.

Sharing continues in the “Hall of Fame,” where users can display new 3D trophies that will be unlocked through in-game milestones for the games they own as well viewing the trophies of other users across the PLAYSTATION Network and for other games they”ve yet to purchase.

“This is a significant step forward in the area of user community services and emergent entertainment experiences,” said Izumi Kawanishi, Corporate Executive and CTO Software, SCEI. “While the 3D graphics demonstrate the power of PS3 and the PLAYSTATION Network, the most impressive feature in Home is the variety of ways in which multiple consumers, as well as our third-party partners, can experience the next generation of communication by interacting and sharing among each other. I feel strongly that this unique blend of community, user-generated content, collaboration and commerce will expand the future of computer entertainment.”

Home will go into a closed beta test this spring with a full launch targeted for later this year. By having a broad range of business partners participate in Home – from 3rd party publishers and developers to brands outside traditional gaming categories – along with a powerful selection of upcoming game software titles for PS3, SCEI will continue to expand the horizons of networked entertainment and vigorously promote PS3 as the next generation computer entertainment platform.

Below are twenty one screenshots illustrating the various aspects of the service.

Sony unveiled its Game 3.0 vision at GDC, saying that games will become more interactive and socially-connected than ever before. Supporting this, they announced LittleBigPlanet, a community-based game with an innovative concept behind it. Players are left on a blue and green planet scattered with individual plots – they must use their characters’ abilities to play, create and share what they build with other gamers on the PlayStation Network.

The LittleBigPlanet experience starts with players learning about their character’s powers to interact physically with the environment. There are obstacles to explore, bits and pieces to collect and puzzles to solve – requiring a combination of brains and collaborative teamwork. As players begin to explore, their creative skills will grow and they will be ready to start creating and modifying their surroundings – the first step to sharing them with the whole community.

Characters have the power to move anything in this glued and stitched-together 3D landscape; they have the power to design, shape and build both objects and entire locations for others to view and play. There’s no complicated level editor; all of these skills can be learned by simply playing the game. Creativity is part of the gameplay experience and playing is part of the creative experience. Players can make their world as open or as secretive to explore as they like. When it’s ready, they can invite anyone within the LittleBigPlanet community to come and explore their patch – or can go and explore everybody else’s.

The game is being created by Media Molecule who were the guys behind Rag Doll Kung-fu. A demo for LittleBigPlanet is slated for release this Fall; the full game is expected early next year.

Below are the first screenshots from the title. More information on the game after the jump.

(more…)

Autodesk announced that it has licensed HumanIK middleware to EA for next-gen game development. HumanIK is a development library that enables game developers to create animated characters to interact more realistically with digital environments. It has been used, alongside Maya 3D and MotionBuilder, in EA’s Def Jam: Icon, FIFA Soccer 07 and NBA Street Homecourt.

“Through our partnership with Autodesk, we were able to achieve a new level of character animation in DEF JAM: ICON, FIFA Soccer 07 and NBA STREET Homecourt,” said Glenn Entis, EA’s chief visual and technical officer. “Part of the reason EA consistently delivers innovative hit game titles like these is because we rely on extensive internal and external R&D. Autodesk HumanIK middleware allowed efficient porting of game data to the various platforms on which we shipped our games. Autodesk R&D team was highly responsive, quickly providing us with customised builds of the HumanIK solution.”

Built from the HumanIK character technology found in the Maya and MotionBuilder software, Autodesk HumanIK middleware provides an on-target intelligent inverse kinematics (IK) animation system. It lets game developers control the animation of a character’s body and limbs at run-time, resulting in a much higher level of realism in the game. Artists are empowered within the game authoring environment, as HumanIK delivers a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) workflow. This also reduces artists’ reliance on integration programmers, who typically port the game data into the game engine.

Some new screenshots of Halo 2 for Windows Vista straight frorm GDC:

Another report from FiringSquad: Funcom project director Jorgen Tharaldsen informed the press that the company is “already deep in development” of yet another MMOG for the PC and Xbox 360; he said this during the company’s demo for Age of Conan. He also revealed that the game is using the same graphics engine as Age of Conan, and it takes place on Earth in the present day. He also mentioned that the game is being shown to publishers at GDC, though not to the press.

From GDC comes word that Linden Labs has licensed Philips’ amBX technology to Rivers Run Red to produce a dedicated amBX-enabled environment. This will offer Second Life users the opportunity to feel the virtual world in the real world through environmental hardware which involves light, air movement and rumble. This agreement also extends to “all-new commercially driven experiences for future brand marketing campaigns” between Philips and Rivers Run Red.

Philips also mentioned that it will be working on the development of solutions for open source Second Life client software to enable users to create new real world effects.

The amBX platform lets developers use light, color, heat, sound and air flow in the real world to add life to their game. This is done through various peripherals that range from LED color-controlled lighting to desktop fans, all of which are now available in the market.

FiringSquad reports from GDC one game that is sure to get gamers intrigued: Urban Mysteries from Denmark-based company Zeitguys Game Development. The studio was co-founded by former Io Interactive member Morten Iversen who, according to the article, was the scriptwriter for the Hitman series as well as the company’s other action title Freedom Fighters. Urban Mysteries is an action game powered by Unreal Engine 3, having players travel through time to change the future. Here’s a bit:

We got to see a brief and very early demo build of the game running on Epic’s Unreal Engine 3. The first part of the game showed our player character as he explored Urban Mysteries’s vision of 2052 with gothic and Victorian architecture. We were told that we would even see Zeppelin like blimps in this future that the player can control and even use in combat. The demo got really interesting when we time traveled to the 18th century version of this city. Here we had to use native weapons like a one shot musket to battle an invasion. The game allows the player to either shoot or attack melee style with the musket to take out enemies. At one point in the demo we have to make a choice. Two people are in a burning building but you can only rescue one. You must decide which one to save and then head back up in time to 2052. The final part of the demo showed our character back in his own time line but we saw the future city change right before our eyes (in-game morphing of the level; not a cut scene) to something totally different.

Zeitguys were showing the game at the event to attract publishers. They are considering either an episodic release or an entire conventional game; either way we can expect it in late 2008 or 2009.

Microsoft has announced its plans to launch a 512 MB Memory Unit for the Xbox 360; it also revealed that the official size limit of Xbox Live Arcade games has been increased to 150 MB from 50 MB.

To be available starting April 3, the 512 MB Memory Unit will retail for $49.99 in the US (£34.99 in the UK) and will come pre-loaded with Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved. The original 64 MB Memory Unit has had its price cut to $29.99 (£22.99 in the UK).

As for Xbox Live Arcade, the increased size limit will give developers flexibility in game design, letting them expand by adding advanced game features. Microsoft also announced that it will showcase the following XBLA games at GDC: Boom Boom Rocket (EA and Bizarre Creations), 3D Ultra Minigolf Adventures (Sierra Online and Wanako Games), Eets: Chowdown (Klei Entertainment Inc.), Jetpac Refuelled (Rare Ltd.) and Pinball FX (ZEN Studios Ltd.).

Word comes from GDC that NaturalMotion, developers of the euphoria and endorphin Dynamic Motion Synthesis technologies, has shipped morpheme, a new animation engine for next-gen game development. Featuring a flexible and unique 3D authoring tool chain, morpheme allows animators total creative control over the look of their final in-game animation by allowing them to author and preview blends, blend trees and transition graphs in real-time. Morpheme is available on PS3, Xbox 360 and PC and is being demonstrated publicly at the GDC.

Further details can be read just after the jump.
(more…)

Hi-Rez Studios, an independent developer from Atlanta, Georgia, has announced Global Agenda, their mission-based action MMORPG powered by Unreal Engine 3. Set in a future world of espionage and tactical covert operations, the game has been in development for over two years and will feature fast-paced close combat, RPG-style character progression, solo or cooperative missions and competitive play on a massive scale between player-created agencies.

A departure from the traditional online settings of high fantasy, outer space, or military, Global Agenda is set on 22nd century Earth. An invisible war is fought not with armies, but with elite teams of highly trained and well-equipped special agents, where technology is a race, knowledge is power, and everyone has an agenda.

Key Planned Features

• Create, extensively customize, and develop an agent character that is unique within the world. Protect your secret identity through covert activity while increasing your skills and influence.

• Join a player-created agency, compete in a technology race for advanced weaponry, and advance your own agenda.

• Engage in solo, co-op, and team objective-based missions against non-player and other player-created agencies.

• Experience a dynamic world of espionage and intrigue, where in-game events and locations are influenced by the actions of players and agencies.

The developer is attending GDC and will be showing off an in-game video at its booth. A preview of the game can be seen on its website.

In more development news, Geometrics has revealed that it has completed work on their Enlighten software for the Xbox 360. It is technology software that “dramatically” enhances the quality of lighting in games, providing physics-based realistic lighting with dynamic lights in real-time.

The company is showcasing the technology on Xbox 360 at GDC. More details can be found on their website.

Formed by the key members from the World of Warcraft team, MMO developer Red 5 Studios announced its participation in Game Developers Conference 2007. The company’s president and CEO Mark Kern will contribute his expertise in online games development to the conference program; the company will also have a recruitment booth on the main show floor. They will be located in North Hall, booth #CP5115, CP5116.

Kern will participate on the panel MMOs: Past, Present and Future, addressing the growth of the genre and how it continues to expand and evolve. The panel will take place on March 7 from 4-5pm, in the West Hall, room 3006.

GDC 2007 will take place at the Moscone Center in San Fransisco, March 5-9.

The nominations for the seventh annual Game Developers Choice Awards have been announced, and Okami and Elder Scrolls IV leads the pack with four nominations each.

Winners will be announced during the GDC, which will take place March 5-9, at San Fransisco’s Moscone Center. The GDCA is the only awards program In the industry with an open peer-based nomination system where honors are bestowed to developers by developers. This year’s ceremony will be hosted by Tim Schafer of Double Fine Productions and will take place on March 7 at 6.30pm within the Esplanade Ballroom of the Moscone Center’s South Hall. Appearing entertainers include DJ Chris and Mega64.

The complete list of nominations can be found after the jump.
(more…)