Games developers conference 2005

Unfortunately, it appeared that Molyneux and two assistants had put more time into their demo than in designing a game. Though graphically beautiful, the designers had no fleshed-out concept behind it.

Wright, the speaker most people in the room had come to see, riffed on Dickinson's reputation as a recluse. But in the end, he was inspired to create a kind of combination of Tamagotchi and Microsoft's universally hated paperclip helper, Clippy. Then came the idea to put the player in the role of Dickinson's therapist.

The game, he said, would be stored on a USB flash drive. Along the way, Wright explained, Dickinson would reside in the player's computerized world, popping up from time to time with an e-mail, instant message, text message or desktop appearance. As an example, he showed the crowd a potential text message from Dickinson: "1t is b3tt3r t0 B th3 h4mm3r th4n th3 4nv1L" geek writing for "it is better to be the hammer than the anvil".

With lines like that, Wright won the challenge, hands down. Many felt Hocking's design was technically a more complete game idea, but Wright won the room with his humor and by tying in the way people use technology on a daily basis with a morose character like Dickinson. In the end, Wright, Molyneux and Hocking demonstrated that imagination is the key to game creation.

Raph Koster, chief creative officer at Sony Online Entertainment, said the presentations were "awesome," but summed up the lamentations of many in the room. See related slideshow. In the new users session, Salesforce's speaker talked about their product features. The most intersting makreting innovation was in the current users session.

In contrast to the Games Developer Conference, this show was much more subdued and had little excitement. Key players are the companies providing embedded O. In the last few years, Microsoft appears to have gain more users due to easy to use and low cost development tools for Windows CE and now Windows XP embedded.

Microsoft showed two casion-type game kiosks developed with Windows XP embedded. The Game Developers Conference seemed well attended, with many people from the U. The Sony booth was set up with many PSP's running different games from different game companies.

Activision third? Sony seems to have done it right this time with all the right features at the right price. Microsoft also has a big presence at this show, with tools for game development. With the success of Halo2 in , Microsoft's game division offers more popular games and an increasingly popular Xbox.

A new Xbox 2 is also rumored to be released before the end of this year. One new feature mentioned by a Microsoft speaker at the show is an online market for users to buy and download "add-on" products for games running on the Xbox 2. Microsoft also had an open bid on their website for outsourcing testing of the Xbox2.