Phil Harrison, Infogrames' new top boss, was never secretive over his plans to cater games to the new broader market. Alone in the Dark (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox 360) will probably be the last major mainstream title queued up in Atari's arsenal if this was true. Thankfully it's not - well not in entirety. Atari will still be catering to hardcore, but not in the same respects as before. Go to the full story for more.

Analysts are known for scrutinizing trends and then making predictions based on those trends. In this case, David Cole of DFC Intelligence has his own take on the Xbox 360's performance in Europe. Interestingly, it includes a predicted switching of loyalties as well. Analyze the details in the full article after the jump.

Sometimes, when people start over, they change their names. In the case of Infogrames, David Gardner and Phil Harrison are thinking of dropping the company name altogether in the interest of starting anew. More on this proposed new beginning after the jump.

It looks as if Phil Harrison, now president of Infogrames, is kick-starting his plans for his new colleagues and company. Word is that Infogrames-subsidiary Atari has just received a proposal to be bought out at a reasonable price, and a special review team has been assembled to review the advantages of the agreement. More at the full story.

Have you always been asking yourself, where did Phil Harrison go? Well, he joined Infogrames. The ex-Sony Computer Entertainment president now plays a significant role in Atari's slow comeback - though that would be an understatement in itself. He is the president of Atari-parent Infogrames, after all. More at the full story.

There's been talk of the upcoming E3 being downsized by the just-held Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007. Reasons vary: this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo will be an invitation-only event, and the GDC saw a 32 percent rise of attendance.

We've all witnessed so much hype for this year's GDC, all with good reason. The GDC people worked hard to bring out a good show; GDC boss Jamil Moledina and his crew brought a good load of dealmaking, press conferences and industry parties to go around in the event.  It also helped that they were able to secure the interesting hands-on hardware workshops with Microsoft and Intel, as well as hotshot keynote speakers such as Shigeru Miyamoto, Phil Harrison and Cliff Bleszinkski.

Said GDC boss Moledina:

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Our alumni attendees uniformly felt it was the best GDC they've attended in recent years, citing the high quality and relevance of sessions, while newcomers were saying it was the best event in the game industry where they made connections and deals with all the key people they now had access to.

More than 16,300 people and 260 exhibitors attended this year's GDC, seeing a rise of 30 and 32 percent, respectively. Everybody's expecting an even bigger attendance at next year's GDC, but as Moledina cites, it's not the size of the event, but the quality that matters. This may exactly be why the usual E3 people are moving to the GDC.

Yes, folks, for those who may not have been aware of it, this would be a good time to point out to you that the Internet (well, it was actually just Digg...) has practically imploded (yet again) for the better part of today.

The reason for this? One line out of Reggie Fils-Aime's mouth, spoken at this year's Game Developers Conference and directed at Sony's Phil Harrison. One line which may actually end up immortalized in video game history books, web comics, blog entries, and trivia centers for years to come.

As eloquently documented by Wired's Susan Arendt, this was how the whole thing went:

"Kick his ass and take his name!" someone shouted from a few rows behind me.

"Who?" answered Reggie in mid-autograph. "Phil Harrison, front row!" Sure enough, there was Phil Harrison, seated dead center, front row. Looks like he could show up on time for Nintendo’s keynote, but not Sony’s.

With a grin and a chuckle, Reggie replies, "Some would say we’ve already done that."

Touchdown. The crowd goes wild.

We're pretty sure this was all said in the spirit of friendly competition, and that any added color that others may have perceived in that exchange were most probably based on their own console preferences and biases.

For all we know, Harrison and Fils-Aime may have gone off together afterwards and had a successful Molten Core run with the rest of their guild in World of Warcraft. We'll never know.

 

There is much to see at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) currently going down today. Now, in case you find yourself lost with the information flooding this event (or perhaps live under a rock), we'll be providing a basic rundown on what can be expected to take place once the event goes full swing:

Major keynote speakers

• Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo will be expected to kick things off with his major keynote speech "A Creative Vision," although it is expected that Nintendo is not going to be releasing any new info...at least for now.
• Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCEI) boss Phil Harrison is also going to be present, and will be doing the keynote speech titled "Game 3.0: Developing and Creating for the Third Age of Video Games," which may possibly carry details on new firmware updates for the PS3, among other things. Keep track of Phil's keynote this March 7, Wednesday.

Events summary

The conference proper will be host to more than 350 lectures panels, tutorials and round-table discussions taking place from March 5 to 9, 2007. Going into specifics, expect these activities to take place within these GDC sub-categories:

• GDC Expo
• GDC Mobile
• The Serious Games Summit GDC
• The Independent Games Festival (IGF)
• The Game Developers Choice Awards
• Game Connection
• Video Games Live
  

Just make sure to click on the links to see what sort of goodies you can expect, such as composer Koji Kondo's performance over at the Video Games Live event. The GDC runs from March 5 to March 9 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. Looking further ahead, the GDC 2008 is expected to take place from February 18 to 22 next year.

Paul Sheppard of ITI Techmedia and CEO Andrew McLennan of Metaforic will be speaking in the sponsored speaker session of the Game Developers' Conference (GDC). The conference will be held in San Francisco from March 5 to 9. Other speakers to be at the event are Phil Harrison and Shigeru Miyamoto.

The session's topic will reveal a working notation for game design that will allow the game experience to be evaluated even before the game undergoes production. The new methodology is expected to cut millions from game development costs. ITI Techmedia announced that US$ 10 million has been invested to standardize and establish the development platform worldwide.

The platform should reflect this new methodology, including standard production processes and distribution methods for online PC, console and handheld games. Hand-in-hand with Metaforic Ltd, the Scottish company will demonstrate how developers can already gauge their game's fun factor by using "difficulty graphs."

Even before production, designers can tweak difficulty levels to keep the game fun, and avoiding the opposite extremes of boredom and frustration. Metaforic will be the organization to commercialize the game design technology. The methodology is a product of ITI Techmedia's research and development program.

Andrew McLennan reasons out, "The black art of Game Design is being able to make games that are fun and playable. This research is beginning to shed light on practical ways to understand if a design is likely to be good in a way that working game designers can use, tune and play with."

ITI Techmedia’s sponsored speaker session will take place on Wednesday, March 7 at 4pm. Representatives from both ITI Techmedia and Metaforic can also be found at Meeting Room 6109 in the North Hall.

The DICE Summit is just getting warmed up. After Phil Harrison's interview, which some received with raised eyebrows, it's Reggie Fils-Aime turn to talk about, what else, the Wii and the DS. The Mercury News was able to interview NOA's chief operating officer at DICE and he has some very interesting things to say.

First off, he mentions that the new data on sales for their hardware and software products will be out next week. But with or without data, he is confident that the Wii is one hot commodity. He said that two thirds of the software sales were by third parties so "developers are sharing in the success." He is also very confident that the Wii would surpass the installed base of the Xbox 360, if this type of sales rate continue.

Now, NPD found out that the top selling console last December was the six-year-old PS2. When asked about his opinion on the PS2, he mentions that the PS2 is not a direct competition of the Wii. Then he was reminded that Bill Gates said that the Wii isn't a direct competition of the Xbox 360, here's what he said about that:

When you're as rich as Bill is, you can say anything...They have done some things that are brilliant at Microsoft. We want to bring gaming back to the masses. Consumers are voting with their wallets and pocketbooks.

As for those who are saying that the gameplay of the Wii is limited and its style of playing is just a novelty, he rebutted by saying that these detractors have probably never seen Zelda - a game which is blessed with 90 hours of gameplay. As for the controversies about the Wii (like the hold your wee contest), he says that the death of the contestant is an unfortunate scenario.

As for the DS, he disclosed that it has sold more than 35.6 million units now and that they "are making millions a month, but the demand is above that."

To read more about the interview, click on our read-link below.