游戏邦在:
杂志专栏:
gamerboom.com订阅到鲜果订阅到抓虾google reader订阅到有道订阅到QQ邮箱订阅到帮看

GDC大会动态:苹果与任天堂角逐游戏行业霸主地位

发布时间:2011-03-04 13:08:45 Tags:,,,,,

本周有18000名游戏设计者和高管们聚集在旧金山莫斯康展览中心(Moscone Center),而对街的芳草地艺术中心(Yerba Buena Center for the Arts)醒目的苹果标志,也着实让他们无法视而不见——这是苹果发布新版iPad的地点。

据游戏邦了解,苹果发布会并非GDC大会中的一个环节。另外值得一提的是,任天堂总裁岩田聪(Satoru Iwata)也在苹果发布会的同一时间,在GDC上发表重要演讲,介绍公司未来的发展规划。

Apple's logo stares unblinkingly through the windows of the GDC

Apple's logo stares unblinkingly through the windows of the GDC

任天堂将于3月29日在美国推出裸眼3-D游戏机Nintendo 3DS,这是GDC关注的一个焦点,岩田聪在本次大会的发言也将成为一大亮点。但是苹果发布会与岩田聪的演讲在时间上重叠了,所以可能会有很多人选择去捧苹果的场。《愤怒的小鸟》开发商Rovio的首席执行官Peter Vesterbacka在GDC上表示,“谈到游戏市场,这一领域的重心会转移到手机应用程序,它会引领行业的发展潮流。”

苹果iPad 2发布会与GDC大会同期举行,不能不说是苹果的大胆举动,该公司打造的产品已分食了游戏市场相当大的一块蛋糕。据DICE峰会公布的数据显示,许多硬核游戏玩家已开始转向更平价、发展更快的手机和平板电脑游戏。

通过iPad 2发布会抢占GDC大会的风头,苹果再次成为人们热议的话题。据游戏邦了解,这一升级版本的平板电脑(可能配备更快的处理器以及拥有更大容量的内存)的问世将成为游戏开发商们在本周的又一大兴奋点。

由于苹果在游戏生态圈中的地位越来越重要,所以很难判断苹果发布会和任天堂的演讲,哪个更能牵动开发商的神经。博客平台Joystiq(AOL旗下产品)的编辑克里斯·格兰特(Chris Grant)表示,他很矛盾,不知道要出席哪个活动。

据游戏邦了解,去年iPad发布会对游戏内容的说明过少,格兰特表示他希望今年苹果可以发布更多关于游戏的信息,毕竟现在的iPad游戏已经很丰富了。

Vesterbacka随后向媒体表示,他可能无法出席任何一个会场,但如果有机会的话,他希望参加苹果的——-他认为Nintendo 3DS已经是人尽皆知,而苹果的平板电脑仍然备受期待。

Rovio在这场游戏较量中也有自己的重磅筹码,据游戏邦了解《愤怒的小鸟》已成为平价手机游戏领域的一个标杆,该公司认为苹果拓宽了手机游戏行业的发展之路。

Vesterbacka在GDC上表示,“我们要摒弃这个以运营商为主导的独断模式,摆脱他人决定游戏好坏的命运。”Vesterbacka认为,过去植入手机平台的游戏是由移动运营商来决定的,这和苏联高度计划的消费品生产模式没什么两样。

他表示,“你不需要拥有27个牌子的牙膏,只要有一款就可以了,而且这款牙膏也不需要很好,”他的这番话引起了在场观众会意的笑声。

而任天堂却更关注打造少数几个游戏品牌。本月初,任天堂美国地区总裁雷吉·菲尔斯·爱默(Reggie Fils-Aime)表示,iPhone拥有大量的廉价游戏,这对“今天的游戏行业来说是个很大的风险”,许多“一次性”的iPhone游戏并没有给用户带来很大的乐趣,任天堂认为这些游戏最终将会遭到玩家的冷落。

如今手机游戏的发展场景异常火爆,岩田聪的当务之急是让开发商相信任天堂的平均40美元的盒装式游戏依旧大有市场。

如果新版iPad的风头盖过了GDC,那么岩田聪在2011年的任务将更加艰巨。(本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译,转载请注明来源:游戏邦)

Apple, Nintendo Slug It Out for Gaming Supremacy at GDC

SAN FRANCISCO — It seems like Apple is really trying to steal the show at the Game Developers Conference.

As 18,000 game designers and executives walk toward Moscone Center this week, they will not likely miss the giant Apple logo on the side of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts right across the street. Apple is expected to take the stage there Wednesday morning and announce the next version of the iPad.

Only thing is, Apple’s presentation isn’t part of the Game Developers Conference, the annual gathering of gamemakers that runs through Friday. Not only that, it’s taking place at the same time as Nintendo President Satoru Iwata’s GDC keynote, in which he will lay out his vision for the company’s future.

Nintendo will launch its glasses-free 3-D game machine, Nintendo 3DS, in the United States on March 27, and buzz around GDC indicates that Iwata’s speech will feature some big news. But with Apple’s event overlapping Nintendo’s, many people may not be there to hear it.

“When you look at the game market, the center of gravity has clearly moved to mobile apps,” said Peter Vesterbacka of Angry Birds–maker Rovio at his GDC presentation Monday. “That’s where the action is, where the new trends are being defined.”

Crashing GDC is a bold move for Apple, a company that has been eating the lunch of the establishment game industry as of late. Research presented at the recent DICE Summit indicates that many hard-core gamers are spending more time playing cheaper, faster mobile and tablet games.

By positioning its iPad 2 announcement on top of GDC’s big show, Apple is slyly engaging in an altogether different sort of disruption. An announcement of a more powerful tablet (possibly including a faster processor and more RAM) could get game creators buzzing this week.

With Apple becoming more and more important in the gaming ecosystem, it’s tough to say which of the two presentations will be more portentous for developers. Chris Grant, editor of the popular AOL-owned blog Joystiq, said he was “conflicted” as to which event to attend.

Last year’s iPad announcement was light on gaming content, but Grant said he expected this year’s to feature more gaming news, now that so many thousands of iPad games are available. (Wired.com will cover the Apple event on Gadget Lab and the Nintendo keynote on Game|Life.)

After his presentation, Rovio’s Vesterbacka told Wired.com he most likely would not be able to attend either keynote, but that he would want to hear Apple’s if he had the choice — the Nintendo 3DS is a “known quantity,” he said, versus the still-mysterious tablet refresh.

Then again, Vesterbacka has a dog in this fight. With more than 50 million copies downloaded, Angry Birds has become the poster child for the cheap-mobile-game revolution. The Rovio executive credited Apple with blowing the business wide open.

“We got away from this carrier-dominated, Soviet-style model where other people decided what was a good game,” he said at GDC. Mobile carriers used to decide which few games to feature on its handsets, which Vesterbacka compared to the way the Soviet Union’s central planners created consumer products.

“You don’t need 27 brands of toothpaste, you just need one, and it doesn’t even have to be good,” he said to knowing chuckles from the crowd.

Nintendo, meanwhile, believes in fewer brands of toothpaste. Earlier this month, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime said the iPhone’s massive library of inexpensive games constitutes “one of the biggest risks today in our gaming industry.” The glut of “disposable” games on iPhone that don’t provide very much fun or entertainment to users, Nintendo asserts, could end up turning players off of games.

With all the hype over mobile games, it’s Iwata’s job to convince game developers that there is still a compelling reason to create the sort of portable games that Nintendo sells — the kind that come in a box and cost $40 each.

If GDC finds itself abuzz over a new, beefier iPad, Iwata might have an even tougher task in 2011.(Source:Wired)


上一篇:

下一篇: