Seems as if Microsoft has some stuff to show off at the upcoming GDC

[Laa-Yosh]

GDC has pretty much become a pre-E3, a show for the entire public in the past years. We can expect lots of announcements and downloadable video content from all the new stuff.

 

[deepbrown]

Those pics are off .. As someone mentioned, Sony's space is over half the size of MS's(55%-60%).

Those pics makes it look worse.

US

Well microsoft's is 80 by 60 and Sony's is 50 by 50, so yeah the picture is off....the Microsoft one is zoomed in more lol. Sony's is 62.5% of Microsofts, 90% of their previous year.

And Microsoft's is only 20% bigger than their last years...

Edit: Didn't see the meters on the original Epic one...they've thus only increased by 7%....so WTF who cares lol

Is it that they are next to each other?

 

[Strange]

well, size matters! (at least to some people, this applies to everything)

 

[deepbrown]

well, size matters! (at least to some people, this applies to everything)

edit: my eyesite needs improvement lol...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

GDC has pretty much become a pre-E3, a show for the entire public in the past years. We can expect lots of announcements and downloadable video content from all the new stuff.

Sure, but its the conferences that are most important there. The booth size is irrelevant,
as previous year's have shown. Size of booth != size of announcements or spectacularity of content, which was the premise of the thread.

 

[AlNom]

Sure, but its the conferences that are most important there. The booth size is irrelevant,
as previous year's have shown. Size of booth != size of announcements or spectacularity of content, which was the premise of the thread.

What do they set up in the booth? Are they similar to CES booths? (i.e. lol-numbers of HDTVs with relevant demos)

Or maybe booth size is related to their ego.

 

[Zassk]

From what I recall, MGS owns the publishing rights to the first two installments of the Gears of War franchise. So GeoW2 will not be multiplat.

 

[iceberg187]

From what I recall, MGS owns the publishing rights to the first two installments of the Gears of War franchise. So GeoW2 will not be multiplat.

They have the right of first refusal.

 

[Qroach]

From what I recall, MGS owns the publishing rights to the first two installments of the Gears of War franchise. So GeoW2 will not be multiplat.

yes and I expect them to make the third part of the franchise exclusive too.

 

[PARANOiA]

Epic should have a really good show now that UE3 seems to coming to market maturity. More and more games are on shelves using UE3. I think they'll be able to walk away form GDC with big smiles, since we should hopefully see some of the quietly signed devs work (more from Square and MS hopefully, along with a bunch of PC-only stuff)

 

[dobwal]

They have the right of first refusal.

MS probably exercised those rights a long time ago.

 

[expletive]

Sure, but its the conferences that are most important there. The booth size is irrelevant,
as previous year's have shown. Size of booth != size of announcements or spectacularity of content, which was the premise of the thread.

Yes but last year Sony had the keynote didnt they? Maybe the booth size isnt indicative of what Sony will announce but I wouldnt expect a repeat of last years major unveilings.

EDIT: I also think that GDC is where we will learn if MS was holding back their 2008 lineup to keep focus on 2007 titles or if it was because their 2008 lineup wasnt looking so good...

 

[iceberg187]

MS probably exercised those rights a long time ago.

Of course

 

[rabidrabbit]

Anyway, the difference in MS and Sony booth sizes aren't that much in real life, as they really are quite small and intimate booths compared to the booth sizes that have been seen in E3's for example.

Surely, MS, Sony, Nintendo... all the companies will have some interesting stuff to show off at the GDC. The op's post just makes it sound out of proportions.

 

[ban25]

GDC is pretty small relative to the E3 of old or any of the Asian game shows. There's basically one floor for exhibitors and another for job booths. The rest of the space is dedicated to the sessions.

 

[Farid]

It's a conference aimed at game development business. Microsoft interest in the field is large and important, as platforms holder but also as a tool vendor.

There's their console business, which is important to promote at such an event, but there's also their other products: Windows Vista (the gaming platform, but also the servers and groupwares software development requires), Windows Mobile, .Net, DirectX, Visual Studio, etc.

Whether a game developer or publisher decides to start a project on a MS platform (Xbox, Windows, Games For Windows, Windows Mobile) or not. This developer/publisher can still be a MS consumer since the company sells development platforms and tools. And MS is a very big player in the field.

Most games, for whatever destination platform, are being developed under a windows environment. Couple that software vendor business approach to the fact that they're also supporting two major gaming platforms, in the form of Xbox 360 and Games For Windows, then it should not be surprising to see that MS needs a large booth to expose all its offerings at GDC.

Now, if you folks are looking for surprises or big announcements, you should all keep an eye on the various press conferences.

 

[iceberg187]

Watch Inside Xbox from your dashboard. The interview with Major Nelson and Geoff Knightley from Spike TV. Geoff was telling Major Nelson that he knows there are a lot of unannounced games for the 360 that they can't discuss. So, with that said, Microsoft is seemingly holding a lot to their chest.

 

[iceberg187]

Jeff Bell interview

http://www.1up.com/do/newsStory?cId=3165627

1UP: What games are you looking forward to in 2008?

I'm looking forward to Fable 2. Peter Molyneux has become a good friend and I think he's a tremendous visionary. I think that's going to be improved tremendously in many, many ways and look forward to launching that. Halo Wars, basically a strategy game onto the console, is something we enjoy pioneering and that's a great IP and that's a great opportunity for us. There's more and more to come; we've got to save a little bit of powder for GDC and if we do X08 or E3 announcements.

 

[slider]

There was a link on Neogaf about MS showing Alan Wake too; as well as a few others things. So excited. I'll try to find the link later and edit it in.

Have I mentioned before that I'm really excited about Alan Wake?

Edit: Thanks Malibu.

 

[Malibu]

Interview with Robbie Bach

While I can’t say much yet with GDC right around the corner I can say that were opening up the console much more. Were enhancing Xbox Live even further.

Well were saving a lot of stuff for GDC, which is where we plan on showing off some big titles such as Halo Wars and Alan Wake.

Obviously there are going to be a couple spectacular things going on at GDC.