By CrunchGear, on 2009.12.21, 01:30.17 pm
Oh, look, I’m taking a single remark from a lengthy interview and making an entire post about it. It concerns Blizzard, the famed developer of World of Warcraft and Diablo. You may think of Blizzard as a PC developer, but that ignores games like The Lost Vikings. Anyhow, Blizzard has said in an interview with Gamasutra, which always does good stuff, that it is not averse to making a console game in the future, just that it needs to be the right game.
An RTS like StarCraft II? That’s probably not the right game: have you tried to play an RTS on a console? Even if a developer pulls it off, as pretty much happened with Halo Wars, compare that to a a proper mouse and keyboard control scheme. It’s almost not even worth the effort to re-invent the wheel like that.
What about an MMO, like You Know What? Again, it’s so crazy to think that you can effectively take a mouse and keyboard and map it over to a controller for such a game. Look at how many buttons this mouse has, and even then it takes a while to get used to it.
As for being so damn pro-PC:
It’s obviously because we’ve made only PC games for the last 15 years, but there’s a perception, I think, that Blizzard is anti-console, and that’s absolutely not the case. We just want to make the right game for the right platform. Think about StarCraft II. Some real-time strategy games have tried to happen on the console. Some of those have been successful, but overall, our experience is that it’s going to be a better game on the PC, ergo it’s developed on the PC.
So it’s not that Blizzard hates your PS3 or Xbox 360, just that its current big games are so PC that it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense trying to pigeon-hole those onto consoles.
via Fudzilla
By CrunchGear, on 2009.11.03, 08:00.00 pm
Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Amazon Kindle the first device to launch with built-in wireless (that is, cellular data) access? You know, you pay for the device, and then you don’t have to pay monthly wireless access because it’s already included in the cost of the device? It’s pretty neat, I think I can say without too much grief, and is a model that’s been copied by other e-book readers. Now it looks like Nintendo is considering such a model for future versions of the Nintendo DS (and not necessarily the XL, mind you). Exciting!
So Nintendo’s president, Satoru Iwata, said at a recent briefing that he’s “interested” in the business model (wireless access that’s built into the cost of the device) because it’s new, and, well, it could help expand the popularity of DSi Ware. Right now, to access DSi Ware you need to be connected to Wi-Fi, which sorta limits its availability. What if you’re sitting on a park bench on a warm spring day and want to download Something? You can’t!
You can imagine other scenarios, I’m sure.
Iwata did express concern that Nintendo would have to be careful with such a model because Nintendo is, in his words, an “amusement company.” It’s not Apple in the sense that it can’t charge $LOTS for its products.
Such a move would also give this theoretical new DS an edge over the PSP Go, which you’ll recall only ships with 802.11b access. That’s a bad move on Sony’s part, yes.
Keep in mind that Iwata could have just been thinking out loud, and that none of this will ever see the light of day. So there’s that.
via Gamasutra
By Neowin, on 2009.10.14, 05:30.48 pm
In an interview with Gamasutra, John Gibson, President and Co-founder of Tripwire Interactive said that Valve is "absolutely not" exploiting independent developers, countering comments made by Gearbox's Randy Pitchford last week. "Is Valve exploiting independent developers? In short: absolutely not." "Without pulling any punches, I can say with certainty that if it weren't for Steam, there would be no Tripwire Interactive right now." Gibson explained that Steam gave Tripwire a route to market their games when disc-based publishers were offering unworkable deals. "In the early days, when we were shopping our first game Red Orchestra: Ostfront 41-45 around to traditional brick-and-mortar publishers, we were shocked at how terrible their proposals were," he said. Read full story...
By Neowin, on 2009.09.21, 04:36.58 pm
In an interview with Gamasutra, Kevin Martens, Blizzard Lead Content Designer, revealed his opinion on the "PC gaming is dead" mentality that has been of much discussion lately. Martens feels that Blizzard counteracts this best by keeping system requirements low while making sure its games are still marketable. "The death knell of PC has risen and fallen over the years, and we keep releasing PC games, and they keep doing incredibly well," said Martens. "I think that there is a market out there for PC games. The latest consoles are great; it's easy to get the game running and all that. They're useful. Read full story...
By Neowin, on 2009.06.18, 11:13.56 pm
Game Developer Researched has released its annual list of the Top 50 Developers according to the number of studios, sales from 2008 as well as SKU (Stock-Keeping Unit) numbers and metacritic ratings for each. A survey in Game Developer magazine asked 600 industry professionals from the magazine and Gamasutra to express their opinions on more than 150 game developers. For the second year in a row Nintendo claimed first place, with Blizzard Entertainment taking second. Ubisoft Montreal skyrocketed from 12th place in 2008 to third place in this year's list. The full list of the Top 50 Developers is posted below. 1. Nintendo 2. Blizzard Entertainment 3. Ubisoft Montreal 4. Rockstar North 5. EA Canada 6. Konami 7. Read full story...
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