Report on Gaame Developer's Conference 2000

 

Hands-On Report: Game Developer's Conference 2000

By Brian Nakamoto
March 11, 2000

March 10, 2000

Apple @ GDC 2000

The Game Developer's Conference in San Jose, California officially kicked off this Friday. Macs Only! has brought you coverage of the GDC since Apple began exhibiting at the conference in 1999. Last year, Apple's refreshing show presence and the then sneak preview of Sega's Dreamcast game console were notable highlights of the event. In the new millennium Apple has returned in the same capacity. In fact, David Graham has written coverage for Apple of their activities here.

Where do you want to play today?

At this year's GDC, one would expect the buzz to be about Sony's recently released (in Japan) PlayStation 2 game console. There was even a rumor that Apple would seed developers with the belated native OpenGL support for Mac OS X. However, Microsoft's Chairman and Chief Architect, Bill Gates had other plans for the game console and personal computer industry at today's opening keynote address.

Fanfare. The keynote began like most keynotes begin. The GDC emcee said a few words about how the conference has grown from a few developers meeting in a house to a gathering of over 10,000 developers from around the world. Then she, like most other emcees that introduce the world's richest person, began to spout accolades hinting at how grateful she felt to be graced by his presence.

Applause. Gates strolled onto stage and informed the audience that he was going to announce a whole new platform. (Uh oh.) But first, everyone must journey with him on a recap of significant events in the game industry starting with a brief overview of Microsoft's participation in it. Interestingly enough, Gates showed a game from the 1980’s that they created for the Apple II. Later, he would go on to mention the Macintosh as a "great milestone". It seemed that Gates had also picked up Steve Jobs’ knack of telling a story. Eerie.

Groans. Gates shared that his favorite game is Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Unfortunately, this interjection was the first and only obviously intentional joke that would elicit a response from the crowd. The other humorous occasion was the latter sight of Gates standing below three gigantic screens with the number 1,000,000,000,000 projected above his head. Soon that number may actually represent his cumulative wealth…

The marketing hyperbole kicked into high gear when Gates uttered: "Microsoft's vision is very broad and ambitious." He spent a virtual eternity discussing the finer points of what makes a great gaming experience, the differences between the types of games traditionally played on a gaming console versus a PC and the wonderful things about Windows. This resulted in Microsoft's DirectX guy, Steve Guggenheimer, to come out on stage to demonstrate what Microsoft was up to with the latest version. DirectX is similar to what Apple may have been trying to do with OpenPlay (formerly GameSprockets) and QuickDraw 3D but significantly more advanced.

Admittedly, the DirectX demonstrations including an as yet to be released multiplayer space game from Digital Anvil complete with voice recognition and multiple multiplayer viewpoints over a network nicely showed off Microsoft's R&D efforts. An instant personal avatar of Gates’ face created with a digital camera also struck home on how Apple needs to get their act together fast if they are to compete with the rapidly evolving proprietary Windows technology.

This fact became crystal clear when Gates unveiled the X-Box, Microsoft's game console box due out in the latter half of 2001. Long thought only to be a rumor, details slowly leaked from Redmond over the past year as the GDC drew near. With the PlayStation 2 out and Nintendo's Dolphin on the way, many people watching had skepticism as Microsoft is ominously known for its vaporware. However, with the help of Microsoft hardware guy, Seamus Blackley, Gates proceeded to awe the skeptics for the X-Box happened to be perhaps a generation beyond the PlayStation 2!

Blackley started by playing around with the standard gee whiz demos of the usual from colorful dancing sparklers to a reflecting pool of water. Moving along, he brought up an office with shadowing, the chaos theory ping-pong balls on mousetraps and then a garden with butterflies. It was impressive - especially with Blackley's hardware spec and development narration through it all. However, everything was cutesy fare with nothing over excitingly cool to the untrained eye. As mentioned earlier, the PlayStation 2 had raised expectations significantly for a console box.

But then something started to happen. Blackley introduced a demo called "Carolyn" with a captivating marital arts cyber chick practicing moves in sync with a giant mech-like machine. Either Gates or Blackley pointed out that the demo was using a fraction of the X-Box's potential.

And then it did happen. In a Jobsonian fashion, Midway's Ready to Rumble was briefly brought up for comparison on a Dreamcast and its star, Afro Thunder, appeared in X-Box glory. There was no contest. Granted, the PlayStation 2 can do equally well but again the audience was reminded that they were using only a fraction of the X-Box's capabilities. It supposedly wasn't breaking a sweat. From the X-Box's specs one could make an educated guess that Gates was telling the truth or believed he was.

To put the cherry with whip cream on top, Gates concluded his X-Box driven speech by announcing endorsements by every major gaming house save 989 Studios (Sony) and Nintendo. Yes, even Bungie was up there and the scary part is that Halo could run radically better if it were running on a Microsoft X-Box.

With the help of Intel, nVidia and a whole lot of money, Microsoft has born a product not unlike the PlayStation 2 or even Apple's iMac. It's cool without marketing. (Microsoft is committed to launch a campaign larger than the Windows 98 launch next year.) Every entertainment addict will want one. Computer games on the desktop may be soon joining arcades as an endangered species. The mind boggles!

Microsoft X-Box Information

Mac OS X Secrets Revealed! Interested? Check here!

Copyright © 2000 by Bill Fox
All rights reserved--no use permitted without attribution.

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