Last week the focus of the gaming world shifted from SXSW to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. This annual conference brings together the who’s who involved in the development of game technology for the world’s largest professionals-only industry event. With over 400 panels, events, speeches and workshops going on, there is plenty for everyone, but we sifted through everything and pulled 5 things to take away from the conference.
Project Morpheus
Sony isn’t one who likes to be left behind, so it was inevitable with the hoopla that VR gaming and the Oculus Rift was getting that a Sony project wasn’t far behind. Well at GDC Sony gave attendees the first glimpse of its VR headset. The project, dubbed Project Morpheus, is compatible with the PlayStation 4 and looks like it’s something out of a TRON special effects workshop.
Oculus Rift
While Sony is just entering the fray, Oculus has been hard at work upgrading the original set we saw at CES. The Developer Kit 2 costs a bit more than the first inception, but it also comes with a few improvements including the control box integrated into the mounted display, better tracking, and a motion-tracking camera.
Independent Games
With new consoles dominating the conversation for most of the year, the question becomes what will be played on them. To answer the ever increasing demands of players, Sony, Microsoft and now even Nintendo have been increasing their efforts to make it easier for indie developers to create games.
Microsoft announced 25 games from independent developers that will be coming to the console including fan favorites like “Strike Suit Zero” from Born Ready Games as well as new ones like “FRU”. Sony released a new list of tools to help indie developers to build games for PSN, PS3, PS4 and now even the PS Vita and have over 100 games in the pipeline. Nintendo, which has lagged behind, has adopted a version of Sony’s developer program and will be giving bigger support to indie developers.
Google Play Update Helps Cross-Platform
With updates coming to Google Play there are a number of changes that Google has added to help developers create cross-platform multi-player games. The upgrade brings a new back end tool allowing for managing leaderboards and achievements across platforms. Multi-player support has also been added across Android, iOS and web allowing for cross-platform multiplayer games between Android and iOS.
Unity 5
Unity Technologies, which gave us the Unity engine that games like Dead Trigger were built on has released its fifth generation engine. The new engine includes a better lighting system, improved audio, and a bunch of other improvements that will allow game developers to create better looking games for cheaper that work across platforms.
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GIANT Life (@giant_life) July 09, 2013
