Microsoft to scale back their backwards compatibility!

This is a quote from Microsoft at the (GDC) this week!

"At some point we're going to focus less on it. When you get to the end of this year there will be a reduced focus on backwards compatibility. There are so many 360 games out there. I don't know if it's important anymore."

Now I know some people like to play their old games but I really think people shouldn't be complaining about it because adding backwards compatibility is something Microsoft doesn't even have to do but for some reason everyone feels like it is a requirement.

It is time to move on people, let Microsoft spend their time on developing new products and features for XBOX LIVE. 

It is time to stop playing in the past and if you want to get really nostalgic, go play Galaga and Pac Man on XBOX LIVE arcade. Those games are being worked on by 3rd party developers who have the time to make them available.

One more thing I would like to add is, when you look at the most played games on the original XBOX on Live, all of those games are playable on the 360 along with 300 others. The games that you can play now are the most popular, they are not going to spend 100's of hours trying to make a game playable for 1 dude in Montana!

The Darkness!

XBOX LIVE activity for the week of 3/5!

Xbox 360 Top Live Titles (UU’s)
1 Gears of War
2 Crackdown
3 Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas
4 Call Of Duty 3
5 Alien Hominid HD
6 GRAW 2 MP Demo
7 Worms
8 Madden NFL 07
9 Oblivion
10 Lost Planet

Top Arcade Titles (Full Versions)
1 Worms
2 Alien Hominid HD
3 UNO
4 Paperboy
5 LUMINES LIVE!
6 Street Fighter II' Hyper Fighting
7 Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3
8 Texas Hold 'em
9 Geometry Wars Evolved
10 Contra

Original Xbox Top Live Games
1 Halo 2
2 Battlefield 2: MC
3 Madden NFL 07
4 Star Wars: Battlfrnt 2
5 Counter-Strike
6 Forza Motorsport
7 Call of Duty 3
8 Ghost Recon 2
9 PGR 2
10 Rainbow Six 3

SOURCE: Majornelson.com

Bungie's weekly update, Frankie is still talking graphics!

Here Frankie talks about a waterfall that you will see in the new map "Valhalla":

One of our effects artists, implemented some spume, foam and spray for waterfalls. The only announced waterfall is to be found in Valhalla, but it’s such a pretty finishing touch and helps smooth out the somewhat abrupt collision of waterfall and river. Valhalla already feels a lot like Yosemite in some ways, and when you’re standing in the fast flowing water, up to your thighs in it, the effect is complete. Maybe just a little more alpine and open than the national park’s intimidatingly oppressive grandeur.

Frankie goes on to talk about the ‘Halo’ aesthetic, yes the graphics have been greatly improved but it still looks like Halo:

Now I keep discussing this stuff as if it’s photo-realistic. And sometimes it is, but again, from an artistic perspective, we’ve gone to great lengths to make sure that the new game retains the ‘Halo’ aesthetic. It still looks like a Halo game, but just rendered with vastly more detail and content and some visual effects that simply weren’t possible on Xbox. And part of that aesthetic is directly tied to gameplay. I was reading about DOF (Depth Of Field - the appearance of something being in or out of focus, as seen by a camera lens, but designed to emulate human vision) effects in another game yesterday – and thought about some of the ways that can harm and help something like Halo.

You can read the entire weekly update here!

Ok Sony, this means war!

This comes straight from Teamxbox.com, I didn't bother writing my own witty article since this pretty much covers it all, but I would like to mention that Sony has just started something that that they will later regret:

Speaking to Three Speech, a sort of official unofficial PlayStation blog, a Sony spokesperson has provided some answers for those of use that claim the new Home service is simply a rip-off of Ninteno Miis, Second Life and Xbox 360 achievements. When asked if Home isn’t a rip-off of Xbox Live, the Sony representative said:

Home is a first of its kind 3D community that allows for open interaction between consumers, SCE and third party partners. It is a truly interactive, global community of users. Xbox Live is a static, 2D, text-heavy environment that can’t match the rich community features found in Home. Xbox Live community interaction is much more passive and limited to the members on that friend’s list.

Someone should tell this Sony representative you can send voice messages and have voice chat conversations; plus, when you get the Xbox Live Vision camera, you can also do video messages and chat.
After Sony's weak and cheap response, we still believe Home is just a copy of the best the Xbox 360 and Wii have to offer. To read more responses from Sony regarding Home, click here.

Microsoft responds to Playstation's "home"!

Microsoft's Chris Satchell finally broke the silence to CVG, calling the Home service:

"not a very game-centric approach".

He then says:

"it's a cool world but it's like a little game by itself. Our approach is the other way around; it's that games are the center and that's the star of the show, that's what people buy the console for".

And when compared to the 360's achievement system, Satchell said:

"they've definitely taken some concepts that we originated like achievements, but I think they're pushing in a different direction and we've sort of fundamentally got two different approaches going on here".

Phil Harrison knows why GTA4 is not a PS3 exclusive!

While speaking to a group of blogger's at the (GDC), Phil Harrison was asked how he felt about the PS3 getting GTA 4 the same time as the XBOX 360:

"I don't think PS3 has the install base to support Rockstar's investment in GTA IV on its own,"

To summarize, he said that the PS3 will gain more exclusives when the install base of the PS3 grows. 

Lets be honest for a second here, Microsoft was grabbing these exclusives when the 360 had a low install base at the time.  When it comes down to it, you and I know that Microsoft just whipped out that check book.  That is how you get exclusives these days, money talks!

2 New Lost Planet maps are here!

The 2 new maps for Lost Planet are "Radar Field" and "Island 902". The maps are 400 points and come in at approx 161MB.

Gears of War was once called "Unreal Warfare"?

Yesterday at the (GDC) Cliffy B went into detail about the development process of Gears of War, including some tidbits of trivia that was very interesting.

• Gears was first called Unreal Warfare which turned into the Onslaught mode in Unreal 2004.
• The "roadie run" only increases your speed by 20%.
• The Locusts were originally called Geist, but a Nintendo trademark forced them to change that.
• At one point they had nothing assigned to the Y button until an employee said "Why don't we make it the look at cool sh*t button?"

Forza Motorsports 2 U.S car list revealed!

• 1987 Buick Regal GNX
• 2004 Cadillac CTS-V
• 2005 Chevrolet Cobalt SS Coupe
• 2002 Chevrolet Camaro 35th Anniversary SS
• 2002 Chevrolet Camaro SS
• 1996 Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport
• 2002 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
• 2006 Chevrolet Corvette Z06
• 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z28
• 1969 Chevrolet Camaro SS Coupe
• 1970 Chevrolet Chevelle SS-454
• 1967 Chevrolet Corvette Stingray 427
• 1970 Chevrolet Corvette ZR-1
• 2004 Chrysler PT Cruiser GT
• 1998 Chrysler Eagle Talon TSi Turbo
• 2006 Chrysler Crossfire SRT6
• 2005 Chrysler ME Four-Twelve Concept
• 1968 Chrysler Plymouth Barracuda Formula-S
• 2003 Dodge SRT4
• 1996 Dodge Stealth R/T Turbo
• 2006 Dodge Charger SRT8
• 1999 Dodge Viper GTS ACR 2003 Dodge Viper SRT10
• 2003 Dodge Viper Competition Coupe
• 1969 Dodge Charger R/T-SE
• 2003 Ford Focus SVT
• 2006 Ford Focus ST
• 2005 Ford Mustang GT 2000 Ford Mustang Cobra R
• 2005 Ford Ford GT
• 1970 Ford Mustang Boss 429
• 1966 Ford GT40 MkII
• 2003 Infiniti G35 Coupe
• 2003 Lexus IS300
• 2002 Lexus SC430
• 2006 Lexus IS350
• 2005 Panoz Esperante GTLM
• 2006 Pontiac Solstice
• 2004 Pontiac GTO
• 1968 Pontiac GTO Hardtop
• 2000 Saleen S281
• 2006 Saleen S281 E 2004 Saleen S7
• 2006 Saturn ION Red Line
• 2005 Scion tC 2007 Shelby GT500
• 1999 Shelby Series 1 1968 Shelby Mustang GT-500KR
• 1965 Shelby Cobra 427 S/C

GRAW 2 reviews are in!

GameSpy

3/8/2007

5 out of 5

100.0%

 

IGN

3/7/2007

9.1 out of 10

91.0%

 

Official Xbox Magazine

4/1/2007

9 out of 10

90.0%

 

GameBrink

3/8/2007

90 out of 100

90.0%

 

GameTrailers

3/8/2007

9.2 out of 10

92.0%

 

Cheat Code Central

3/8/2007

4.5 out of 5

90.0%

No Unreal engine 3 on the Wii!

At the Game developers conference this week, Mark Rein of Epic games commented on why their Unreal Engine 3 will not be licensed for Nintendo Wii games:

"Ummmmm, well, this is kinda a high definition engine. Designed for a certain level of graphics card and certain amount of CPU. You know, I'm sure one of our licensees will squeeze it down into the Wii. The way Ubisoft squeezed Unreal Engine 2 into the PSP," he explained in a little bit more detail exactly why the Wii and Unreal Engine 3 won't become best buddies, "Unreal Engine 3 is designed for a high level shader architecture and the Wii doesn't have that. I mean, you know, it's just not what we've been aiming for, so it's not something we're looking to do or support."

Peter Molyneux and his dog!

Peter Molyneux, the brain child of Fable and Black and White sat down with Brian Crecente of Kotaku.com where he talked about some innovations that we will see in Fable 2 and quite honestly, some of them sound revolutionary.

Peter Molyneux on what is different from Fable 1:

"We are going to give you more combat and then we thought we would give you better spells, and a bigger world. We will multiply the world size by, I don't know, 100, and we would fill that world with beautiful things. There are 15 million poppies in the world of Fable, we also have bluebells and pansies and all of that."

"What I came to realize was that the feature that Fable lacked and Fable 2 needed was drama," he said. "Yeah, we could make an impressive and incredible story with baddies, but we needed something else. The thing we really needed and this is the one you may not get is love."

"Why shouldn't you have a game which has at its core the ability for you to feel something from a game you've never felt before."

Peter Molyneux on what I see as revolutionary:

"You can get married, you can choose to have protected or unprotected sex and if you have unprotected sex you can have a baby and it can grow up and it will be as you, it can be evil or good,"

Peter is banking heavily on what will be your pet dog, a dog that you will train and it will develop it's own AI, you will not have direct control over your dog:

Molyneux spends a bit of time showing off his dog. He calls it over, his character squatting and waving his hands to the dog. The dog comes running.

He then shows us how the dog will act as a sort of living map, that he will guide you on our way through your adventures. There is no hud in the game, Molynuex says.

When Molyneux comes upon three people he attacks one with his rifle and the dog charges off to attack the other two.

After the battle the dog, whimpering and limping, comes slinking back to Molyneux, it is a genuinely sad and touching scene.

In researching this concept they talked to psychologists and looked to hollywood, where they learned that one golden rule of movie making was to never kill an animal. That's the gold rule.

I recommend you head over to Kotaku.com and read the whole interview because this game is looking to be absolutely amazing.

Cliffy B wants to see Jazz Jackrabbit on XBLA!

Today at the GDC, Cliff Bleszinski said that he would like his classic platformer Jazz Jackrabbit on XBLA.  Cliffy said that epic does not have the time right now to do so because they are so busy with Unreal 3, he went on to say this:

"If anybody knows a person out there that can do it for us, more power to them,"

Cliffy also said they are busy on a "potential sequel" to Gears of War.

Also if you didn't know this, Jazz Jackrabbit was released on the PC in 1994 and was Cliffy's first game at Epic.

7th annual Game Developers choice Awards!

Nominations were free of charge and open to all IGDA members, ensuring that the nominees reflect the international development community's opinions. The IGDA membership voted on the finalists.

The recipients for the 7th annual Game Developers Choice Awards are:

• Best Game
  Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Cliff Bleszinski, Michael Capps, Rod Fergusson
  
• Audio
  Guitar Hero II (Harmonix Music Systems / RedOctane)
  - Jeff Allen, Eric Brosius, Izzy Maxwell
  
• Character Design
  Ōkami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
  - Mari Shimazaki, Sawaki Takeyasu, Kenichirou Yoshimura
  
• Game Design
  Wii Sports (Nintendo)
  - Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiaki Yamashita
  
• Technology
  Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Michael Capps, Ray Davis, Tim Sweeney, Daniel Vogel
  
• Visual Arts
  Gears of War (Epic Games / Microsoft Game Studios)
  - Jerry O'Flaherty, Chris Perna
  
• Writing
  The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (Nintendo EAD / Nintendo)
  - Kyogoku Aya, Nate Bihldorff, Mitsuhiro Takano
  
• New Studio
  Iron Lore Entertainment (Titan Quest)
  - Paul Chieffo, Jeff Goodsill, Brian Sullivan
  
• Innovation
  Line Rider
  - Boštjan Cadež
  Ōkami (Clover Studio / Capcom Entertainment)
  - Atsushi Inaba, Hideki Kamiya
  Wii Sports (Nintendo)
  - Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiaki Yamashita
  

Recipients for the evening's special awards were:

 

• Lifetime Achievement
  Shigeru Miyamoto
  
• First Penguin
  Alexey Pajitnov
  Maverick
  Greg Costikyan
  Community Contribution
  George “The Fat Man” Sanger
  

"Once again, the Game Developers Choice Awards have shown that gaming greatness can be found within every type of game—from the most hardcore of experiences, to those that have brought all new audiences into our industry’s fan base," said Jason Della Rocca, Executive Director, IGDA. “Each year, I am humbled by what our members can do with this great art form.”