A few weeks ago, there I was, thinking that the PS3 might get the Facebook feature. But with this announcement, Microsoft beats Sony to the punch in sealing the deal, plus Twitter and Last.FM, further upping the Xbox 360's repertoire of web services.

It's better to give than to receive - this was the point of the new initiative set up by Ratchet & Clank developers Insomniac Games as it introduced a new technology sharing program entitled "Nocturnal" for other video game developers in the industry. Its aim is basically to create a central information hub which different devs can share with one another. You can find out more about the Nocturnal initiative by reading our full article after the jump.

During the Game Developers Conference 08 in San Francisco, the company Havok has released version 5.5 of its renowned game engine of the same name. The announcement was done by no less than Managing Director David O'Meara.

There have been many changes to the engine that promise to make gameplay experience more immersive. Know all about these changes after the jump!

With today's global community, it's important to get connected and to stay connected. Exit Games allowed players of various platforms to do precisely that with the Neutron multiplayer gaming platform, the latest version of which was recently unveiled at the Game Developer's Conference 2008. Get connected in the full article after the jump.

Emotiv Systems has sent word that they will be introducing the beta build of their mind-controlled headset's SDK at the upcoming Game Developer Conference in San Francisco.

While the SDK won't be released until a month later, Emotiv's lecture should give visitors an idea of what the company's new tech will offer. Details are available in the full article.

 

Together with the official debut of "Command & Conquer Battlecast Primetime", Electronic Arts LA (EALA) has opened up avenues into new developments of the Command & Conquer lineage. Among many community featurettes, EALA has revealed three important things: a new expansion to Command & Conquer 3, an official modding SDK, and an experimental Battlecast Viewer.

Rumors of the C&C3 expansion began when a mysterious screenshot (see image to the right; do click on the thumbnail) was discovered by the community. But in the first episode of the Battlecast Primetime, it was revealed to be a capture of the expansion to Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars (Xbox 360, Windows PC on DVD) officially announced as Command & Conquer 3: Kane's Wrath.

Expansion facts were highlighted as follows:

• Domination meta-game: a RISK-style mode "on steroids," where units can be moved strategically on a global scale; encounters move to the classic C&C tactical mode for skirmishes
• A story dating back to the Second Tiberium War, extending past the Third Tiberium War
• New characters to accompany Joe Kucan (Kane)
• Additional units and content
• New selection interface (featured in mystery screenshot) for Xbox 360 gamers
• Expansion to release simultaneously on Xbox 360 and PC
  

Patch 1.07 should be coming soon in August, which, aside from solving more balance issues with game units, will also break down walls in modding restrictions. An exclusive modding software development kit (SDK) will provide modders with the ability to create their own units, customize them, and integrate them to the core game easily.

And lastly, the Battlecast Viewer was also announced to be in the works. Even without a copy of the game, fans will be able to watch recorded battles from anywhere in the world. Platform details are sketchy, but the Viewer will be available for download on the official Command & Conquer website once its ready.

Keep your eyes glued to this space: more developments in the C&C scene as they come rampaging by.

Buy: [Command & Conquer 3 (Xbox 360)]
Buy: [Command & Conquer 3 (PC)]

 

According to an official press release handed over by the friendly neighborhood mailman, PathEngine, makers of the self-titled pathfinding and movement SDK, announced Release 5.10 of their SDK. Sporting a ramped up graph search core and improvements in performance for dealing with dynamic obstacles, the SDK was licensed to at least three more parties.

In addition to 3d-io and Dongguk University of Korea, the SDK has been "proudly" announced to be licensed to Creative Assembly, the makers of the phenomenal Total War strategy series. In fact, it has been explicitly stated that the SDK will be incorporated in the UK and Brisbane-based developer's as yet unnamed project for the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

Creative Assembly has currently just polished up their Total War Kingdoms expansion for the latest installment to the Total War series, Medieval II: Total Wars. Does that mean there's a totally new Total War title heading for the next-gen console? We'll keep you posted as developments come up.

And no, it's not done yet. id Software's elusive Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is still in development by a trio of developers, including Nerve Software, Z-Axis and Splash Damage, each one catering to a different gaming platform (the PC, the Xbox 360, and the PlayStation 3). If you haven't heard the news yet, Quake Wars went multiplatform after id Software slapped buckaneers' hands for making them do it.

 

Splash Damage is responsible for the PC development side, and have been in close collaboration with the other developers and with id Software to solve problems occurring on each platform. It's starting to become a ping-pong game of favors, as Splash Damage's Paul Wedgwood revealed:

We do as much as we can to support their focus, but Splash Damage is not an experienced console developer. When it comes to queries about the engine or what we can do to optimise the game for those platforms we'll do that, and in return companies like Nerve Software (working on the 360 version) are helping to develop two of the maps. So it's a very collaborative process.

Currently, Wedgwood has highlighted in an interview with CVG that the game was designed with a focus on "map uniqueness." Going unique all the way, it seems that Splash Damage won't be focusing too much on vehicles to add more longevity to the game.  As Wedgwood said, "We've always had this design philosophy that you shouldn't nerf gameplay in an attempt to make gameplay more accessible. We wouldn't want to make something simple just to attract more players."

So players specializing in a certain profession should have more than one way of climbing up the ranks, even if they don't fire a single shot. Wedgwood also revealed that maps in Quake Wars highlight the turning points in the Human vs. Strogg War, just so objectives can be outlined on who is defending and who should be attacking. Modders rejoice, because Splash Damage is planning to also serve your needs well. Wedgwood said:

As soon as we're done with the PC version we're going to be working on the SDK which is really releasing the source code, the documentation that we've maintained over the last couple of years, the artistic media level designers are going to want for putting together big megatextures and getting that out into the community so that mod makers and level designers can get a start on creating their content. Once we're done with that we'll look at the plans that Id Software has.

As director of product management at Havok, Jeff Yates explained the intricate details of the Havok physics simulation tool that they delivered to titles such as Half-Life 2, Dead Rising, and MotorStorm, including the insight of how the gears turn for the technical side of the game industry.

 

For two and a half years, Havok has been developing software development kits for use in physics engine and animation development in games. With the official launching of the SDK back in mid-2004, they've had seen a lot of progress with their animation and physics features as the years rolled by.

So it wouldn't be surprising that in an exclusive interview with game dev's haven Gamasutra, Yates got a little bit technical about next-gen console technology and competition against PhysX">AGEIA's PhysX hardware physics accelerator for the titan PC.

Havok, as you must know, delivers software solutions to physics simulation, which is something that next-gen consoles require as of this moment. Many other game developers license the use of the physics SDK to simulate real in-game physics in the most complex and hardware hungry of titles (Half-Life 2 for example).

Software physics is handled by the CPU and its cores, although new solutions have GPUs taking the processing load off the CPU. Havok delivers their physics engine solutions as customers require of them, often catering to the different hardware slapped into the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. After all, they've built their solutions with cross-platform features and consoles in mind.

Click on Full Article to read more on Jeff Yates opinions on next-gen console tech and development, plus PhysX on PCs.

The whole videogame industry is currently in the middle of the transition to high-definition next gen visuals with the introduction of DirectX 10, and to make the transition an easier process, here comes Nvidia with the "definitive" game development platform, Nvidia SDK 10.

The core of Nvidia's new platform is the new NVIDIA Developer Toolkit. It promises to "save developers time and money in creating games that deliver almost lifelike graphics and physics realism." The platform consists of Nvidia GeForce(R) 8 Series graphics cards, Nvidia nForce(R) 680 motherboards, and DirectX 10.

The new NVIDIA Developer Toolkit also includes instructive code samples, advanced shaders, performance tuning, and more, all in a bid to make the creation of Microsoft DirectX 10-compatible games easier.

The Nvidia Developer Toolkit also includes the following:

• SDK 10: all-new DirectX 10, OpenGL, and CUDA code samples for the latest GPUs
• Texture Tools: Powerful libraries and plug-ins for working with textures - now with DirectX 10 support and approximately 10x faster due to GPU acceleration via CUDA
• PerfKit 5: powerful tools for debugging and profiling GPU applications for Windows Vista and DirectX 10 -- now with shader edit-and-continue, render state modification, customizable graphs and counters, and more
• ShaderPerf 2: detailed shader performance information with support for new drivers
• FX Composer 2: a world-class development environment for cross-platform shader authoring; DirectX and OpenGL support with HLSL, Cg, and COLLADA FX
• Shader Library: the world's largest collection of GPU shaders featuring more than 100 different shader effects and support for external submissions

Nvidia is currently demonstrating the entire development platform and distributing some of its components free of charge at the Game Developers Conference (GDC).