The Future of Microsoft Gaming 29
Ars Technica has an interview up with Matt Lee, a software developer in Microsoft's Xbox division. He's got a lot to say on the subject of the future of MGS gaming. He touches briefly on Xbox Live, Games for Windows, and the powerhouse that is the 360. From the article: "The tessellator in the Xbox 360 GPU is indeed a very powerful piece of hardware, and you're right--most games have yet to take advantage of this. I think you'll see more titles use it in the future. As for procedurally generated worlds, I believe the biggest obstacle to overcome is how to design and build the content for such a system--it can be quite a departure from today's art pipelines. Game studios will figure it out though--it's crucial to generating and delivering ever larger worlds without having to exponentially grow the size of the art team."
Impressive at Best... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Impressive at Best... (Score:2)
Re:Impressive at Best... (Score:1)
Re:Impressive at Best... (Score:2)
HOWEVER... you are right in the fact that the different hardware architecture will limit what it can do. But if they all use a similar language to communicate (as I bet they do), it won't be hard to have the virus use the languages built in functionality to exploit the hardware.
Re:Impressive at Best... (Score:2)
Is that what you want? Should I give you some attention now? Would that make you happy?
Re:Impressive at Best... (Score:1)
Listen to Will Wright (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just what Will Wright is solving with Spore for example. What is the thing people like more then watching all this content? Making it! Thats why his games let people create it in a smart way instead of the developers/artists.
And the biggest advantage is that he is letting people share their content creating a huge repository for people to get all their ideas/content.
That is (IMHO) the future of gaming, and hopefully for them, the future of Microsoft gaming.
Re:Listen to Will Wright (Score:2)
Re:Listen to Will Wright (Score:1)
I know this is Slashdot, so you obviously didn't read the article. Did you even read the summary, though? This bit was quoted in part right there in the summary:
Re:Listen to Will Wright (Score:1)
And of course I meant its a part of the future of gaming, you can't say what the future of gaming is.
There will always be people who love creating stuff, and others that don't, but the biggest advantage of Spore for example is that you can easily use stuff made by other people.
You can already see that in almost all parts of gaming, shooters have map-editors, some just play in those maps, some make them etc.
Re:Listen to Will Wright (Score:1)
4 more years! 4 more years! (Score:1)
Re:4 more years! 4 more years! (Score:2, Interesting)
Well, the 360 is designed to eventually break-even or even make money, which the Xbox was not. So, Microsoft will not be as pressed to get the Xbox 3/720/Next/whatever out in another 4 years. And if all goes well (poorly, that is) with the PS3, Microsoft will be in a much more comfortable position and not ha
MGS4 (Score:1)
Yeah, Guns of the Patriots is going to rock!
Re:MGS4 (Score:2)
He does, but how much of it will turn out to be accurate?
I tried to read the article all the way through, but kept getting distracted by something that was in the first couple pages. Matt Lee got his Masters degree in 2001, only five years ago. And he's already the go-to guy for pretty much the entire Microsoft gaming platform as far as graphics optimization goes, at least going by his description of his job duties.
Even if he is a technologi
Re:MGS4 (Score:1)
but you also get the flip side where the real gurus become stuck in their ways and/or wont touch a 3D workstation unless its SGi.
I wouldnt buy an xbox.... but then I'm a Nintendo fanboy and hate large conglomerates (sony, microsoft) trying to monopolize all the pies... but this guy with his lowly five years commercial experience could bring a new twist to the world where a guy with 20 years experience might have went stale 10 years ago.
I'm not trying to diss the experienced here at all... if an
Procedural gaming, in demo form (Score:5, Informative)
Under 100kb of code creates a fairly rich, neat demonstration of procedural game content.
Procedural is definately one way the industry is leaning, but its not the end all be all. Testing collision related bugs in games that has procedurally created collision requires some concessions to be made in terms of the game design. Its tough to create a game where content is created dynamically, but doesn't create situations where the player can get stuck, or produce other similar 'progression stopper' kind of bugs.
SpeedTree works in wide open environments, but indoors, in tight quarters, procedural content is a whole different bag. I think the biggest potential is in creating procedural textures that ensure no two places look exactly alike. But as with any new approach, procedurally generated content provides a whole new set of challenges and cons.
Re:Procedural gaming, in demo form (Score:2)
If anything I think it works best for ORGANIC items. That is to say it might not be the best idea to make a building; though a procedurally generated texture layer to generate a weathered effect on the shingles might be cool. Then you could use the same small generic repetitive texture for all the shingles and simply procedurally generate the effects that make them look unique. Procedu
Re:Procedural gaming, in demo form (Score:1)
Re:Procedural gaming, in demo form (Score:2)
Not to take anything away from nethack, which is cool and fun and was groundbreaking, but are really comparing creating 'collision' in the form of a 2d small-res grid with creating fully 3d worlds with collision including jump, crouch, object interaction, varying other mechanics that may include riding horses, swimming, climbing, etc?
What do expect me to say? Oh shit, nethack! I guess we might as well go home and wait for BF2, Quake, Oblivion, etc to stop selling because cle
Re:Procedural gaming, in demo form (Score:1)
nice interview. Could almost make out the slurping (Score:1, Funny)
I've heard that one before. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've heard that one before. (Score:2)
its a workaround. a workaround used to speed up the development process. if time were not a factor, they would still require procedural content. in a perfect world the artists would have control over all content and asset minutiae. due to the increasing focus on deadlines and the limitations of the hardware, this is basically the only way the x360 can advance.
due to the space constraints of HD material on DVD9 and the lack of abilit
Powerful GPU? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)