Intel Says Raytraced Games In 2-3 Years

Everyone (well, most people) fancy Ray-traced games. Ray tracing will be the ultimate photo real leap for video games, unfourtunately, real-time ray tracing is not possible even with today’s hardware. According to Intel, we may see ray traced games in next 2-3 years. Interesting stuff.

PCGH: Are there game developers that already want to work with Raytracing?

Dr. Michael Vollmer: We keep in touch with companies all over the world - I dare say that in two to three years time we will see something. There already are some individual approaches, especially in the science sector, which show that Raytracing algorithms are scaling very well with the numbers of cores. But the migration to a new programming technology takes years; Raytracing is still in an early stage.

Midway Closes LA Studio

Midway Inc, will soon be closing it’s L.A studio and will offer relocation to all the employees to the San Diego office. One of the main reasons for the relocation is the development of the TNA video games.

Combining the locations will allow the TNA Impact development team to further leverage synergies with Midway’s other development studios in Chicago, Austin, Seattle, and Newcastle, UK, and work in close conjunction with the third party production, licensing, and quality assurance groups that are currently in San Diego.

Press Release:
Midway Games Inc. (NYSE: MWY), a leading interactive entertainment publisher and developer, today announced it will be combining the operations of Midway Studios – Los Angeles, located in Moorpark, CA, with Midway Home Entertainment, located in San Diego, CA. The newly combined operations will be located at Midway Home Entertainment’s current San Diego facility. The majority of Moorpark employees, including the entire development team for Midway’s TNA iMPACT!™ franchise, are being offered the opportunity to transfer to the San Diego facility. Midway expects to complete the transition out of the Moorpark facility by September 30, 2008. Read more

Randy Pitchford Talks, Brags about Xbox Live Gamerscore

Randy Pitchford is quickly becoming one of the more annoying personalities in video gaming industry, Following CliffyB and Peter Molyneux. Gamasutra has a long 10 page interview (cheap way to get page views….) with Randy Pitchford, CEO of Gearbox Software. Here’s a snip:

Burnout is a problem, and it can happen to anybody. Even in our studio, we’ve crunched. We care a lot about the results. Sometimes there’s the reality of, “Wow, we’re landing and we really want to make this better,” and we’re all working really hard to do that.

And sometimes, it’s really interesting how people are. We’re not saving the world. We’re making video games. But we tend to take a lot of pressure on ourselves, because we all want to do a good job. For some people, that’s a real problem, so things like burnout and disillusionment can happen.

It’s important that we try and remember why we’re doing it, and get back to playing games. Play the games and try to find ways that we can enjoy the process of making them.

ex-Guns N’ Roses member takes a shot on video games

When Slash isn’t busy snorting cocaine off hookers, screwing up performances or getting hammered, Slash is giving his two cents on video games:

The thing about video games is that they do promote this sort of lethargy in kids..

“They turn into gaming zombies. So I understand the concern that people who play Guitar Hero would never pick up a real guitar. But I think it’s the opposite effect.” 

You can read rest of the interview here.

Ben Cousins: “Web is the future of gaming”

Ben Cousins, DICE’s executive producer and the senior developer of upcoming Battlefield: Heroes game was interviewed by GamesIndusty.biz. Cousins says the web will be the dominant gaming platform of the future. This statement holds plenty of ground when you look at the crazy popularity of “casual” web based video games. Ofcourse, let’s not forget Battlefield: Heroes is also browser based and is catergorised as a “casual” game.

“People talk about which of the two, PlayStation or Xbox, is going to be the big platform of the future,” Cousins said.

“I think the web is going to be the big platform of the future, whether it’s running on an iPhone or a Mac or on the PC.”

72% of US Population Plays Video Games

According to NPDGroup, 72% of US’s population plays computer/console games. This number is up from 2006’s 64% study. Half of the total gamers play online on either XBOX LIVE!, PlayStation Network or PC.

Four out of 10 online gamers are ages 2-17, driven heavily by kids ages 6-12. Kids ages 2 to 12 are driving more than 25 percent of online gaming, while 18-24 year olds only represent 10 percent of online gaming. Among those who use a video game system for online gaming, Xbox 360 is the top system used, with 50 percent stating they play games online via that system. On average, Xbox 360 owners spend the most time per week using their 360s to play games online, followed by PC and PS3 owners using these respective systems for online game play. According to the report, 13 percent of online gamers spend 20 hours or more per week on online gaming. Per platform, 33 percent of portable online gamers, 29 percent of console online gamers and 13 percent of PC online gamers are in this heaviest online gaming group. At this point in the lifecycle of today’s video game consoles, multiple console ownership is low, with only 3 percent reporting that they own two of the three “next-gen” systems and only 2 percent claiming to own all three systems. “Despite the buzz in the industry regarding online gaming, it is still relatively small compared to offline gaming,” said Anita Frazier, industry analyst, The NPD Group. “There is still a large, untapped market for gaming in general and online gaming in particular.”

Remember, when you run into retards while playing, it’s not your fault.

NPD Press Release 

Paramout Studios To Get Into Video Games Publishing

If you can’t get enough of sub-par movie-to-game adoptions, rejoice! Paramout Studios has announced that it’s decided to get into the video games publishing business. Here’s a snip, courtesy of Variety.com :

The studio has expanded its interactive department team and is putting together a slate of games that it will partially or completely finance and for which it will more directly oversee development. Games will be based either on new Par films or catalog titles.

Details on Par’s inaugural self-published or co-published games weren’t available, but the first few are expected to come out later this year.

Ubisoft Buys Tom Clancy Name

Ubisoft has bought the name Tom Clancy to reduce their royalty pay offs. Ubisoft now owns all rights to use Tom Clancy name in movies, music, games or books.

Ubisoft CEO Ives Guillemot said in a statement, “The future of our industry lies in our capacity to create and develop brands that captivate consumers and that present a myriad of opportunities for the full spectrum of entertainment, be it video games, books, movies or other media.”

by Next-Gen.biz

Assassin’s Creed QnA

IGN sat down with Charles Beauchemin, technical lead at Ubisoft to chat about the upcoming PC version of Assassin’s Creed. Snippet from the QnA:

IGN: How much of the changes were based on community feedback after the console version’s release?

Charles Beauchemin: When the console version was released, we looked at the feedback from the community and we decided to use the additional time of development to add some variety by including new investigation types. Here is an example: before receiving the green light to assassinate Garnier de Naplouse, you had to complete 2 investigations out of 6. However, you could complete all the investigations available as well. Since we had 5 potential investigation types, you would at least encounter one type twice. Now, with the 4 new investigation types, we have a total of 9 investigation types, so you can complete all 6 investigations before going for Garnier de Naplouse without doing the same investigation twice.

Full QnA and 33 screenshots after the jump.
Read more

Futuremark Looking to Trademark “Pwnage”

On February 26, 2008, Finnish software development company Futuremark filed to protect the trademark Pwnage in relation to “computer game software and computer game programs enabling users to play games with mobile phones and personal digital assistants” and “online computer games provided via network between communications networks and computers” Read more

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