GDC Day 1
Wow. It's not the Geek Developer Conference - it's the GAME Developer Conference. ;)
What a cool experience! I spent time in a few sessions. Probably the most valuable was the talk given by Pete Isensee where he discussed writing good c and c++ code on platforms such as Sony's PS3 and, of course, XBox 360. I gleaned some useful information that should be applicable to CLR performance work on 360.
Some of the other sessions went way over this platform guy's head; techniques for effective character rigging, etc. Cool and fascinating nonetheless.
I didn't get to all the sessions I wanted - but that's actually a good thing in this case. I spent most of my time interacting with conference attendees and answering their questions about the cool new XNA Framework at the Xna Booth.
Rumor Mill… http://news.com.com/2061-10797_3-6052255.html There was significant buzz around this rumor at GDC. Of course, this is just that – rumor. We have not released any SKU or packaging plans for the XNA Framework at this point. Keep checking http://www.microsoft.com/xna for updates. Look for us at Gamefest 2006, also.
It was a blast to connect with customers, answer their questions, and hear about the cool things they wanted to do with XNA Framework. All of the developers readily identified with the productivity gains that C#, and more specifically managed code, would enable. Everyone was impressed with the Culture and Pocket-Jongg built from the same source, running on both Windows XP and Xbox 360 on our custom version of the CLR. In addition to industry professionals, many from academia were also interested in the platform.
The demos looked fabulous. There is virtually no difference in look or playability across either Windows or Xbox 360 versions. It was very fun to show and see the excitement in people’s faces. Attendees seemed to feel that Xbox Live Arcade titles would benefit greatly from the XNA Framework.
On the fun side if things, there were a lot of cool things to see. Among the coolest was the S3 booth where you could watch Kornelia spank the living daylights out of any challenger on the exhibition floor on Quake 4. It was truly amazing to watch a professional gamer get frag after frag after frag against amateur opponents. I got there mid afternoon and she had already beat up on countless opponents. I thought she was a really good 'bot that was cheating, at first. She was so good that they were giving a free video card to anyone who could manage to get a SINGLE frag. At the point at which I started watching – there had been only been one frag recorded. Whoa. She was scary good. She could anticipate where you would go after you freaked when you caught a glimpse of her. It’s like she was psychic. The best frag I witnessed was where her opponent did a mega hop off of a juiced ramp and she picked him off – while running backwards on the ground – while he was still in mid air. Scary good, but yet she was very normal and very approachable. I chatted with her for a bit between matches – I commented how she must be really bored. She said – a few of the players were “almost OK”. Kudos Kornelia. I hope I never meet up with you in a dark alley online.
It was a LONG day on the floor. My back and feet are killing me! It's a crime to have an engineer who spends all day sitting on his behind whacking away at code and bug fixes stand up all day! But I'm pumped nonetheless. This continues to be an awesome experience.
Here are some videos:
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/IndieCrazyBallByAtomicElbow.wmv
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/IndieRumbleBoxByDigipen.wmv
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/SonyPS3Ducks.wmv
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/XnaFxBooth.wmv
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/KorneliaRules.wmv
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/Kornelia.wmv
Here are some pictures:
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/atibooth.jpg
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/coolbooth.jpg
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/sonybooth.jpg
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/xnabooth.jpg
http://www.unoki.org/public/gdc2006/xnafxdemos.jpg
