After David Jaffe posted a shot of an internal email he sent, details leaked about a new car game he's working on. He may have blurred the pertinent details, but there's always someone with mad photoshop skills out there who could work around it - to some extent at least. What they managed to unfog leads to a car game, now speculated to be a new Twisted Metal game.

David Jaffe, Peter Molyneux, Greg Zeschuk, Cliff Bleszinski - four of the most creative minds in gaming industry share their thoughts on the four things that sell: sex, violence, ratings, and gaming design. Get their take on the the consumers' perception, the fun, the taboos, and the necessary.

Let's play a little association game. When I say "men in video game development," whose names come first to mind? Kojima? Jaffe? Miyamoto? The list goes on. Now how about if I say "women in video games development?" You probably thought of Jade Raymond then... blank. Kind of imbalanced ain't it? That was the point of Emily Newton-Dunn, former producer of the Burnout series. She remarks that there is a gender imbalance in the industry and that there should be more women making games. Full story after the "read more" link below.

David Jaffe was quite unhappy with the response of the online community after proposing a one-console future. Take note, however, that he doesn't really mind if the public and the media journalists don't agree with him.

The problem lies, according to Jaffe, in the fact that his post was misunderstood and was even sensationalized by some. A video explanation from David Jaffe himself about this awaits in the full article.

We all have our preferred consoles not only now, but even during the previous generation of video game platforms. It is the standard that some features will be present in one platform with others offering another that is not available on other consoles.

David Jaffe, however, believes that gamers will benefit the most if the future of the video game industry will be built around just one console. Check out the full article via the "read more" link below.

When not working on premiere titles like God of War, David Jaffe is just another gamer like the rest of us. Or at least, that's what most would figure out after spending some time reading his personal blog. His latest post is an IM conversation with a designer from Sony, but it's not about the dynamics of a game or how to make hardware work - it's about their opinions on Halo with no PR obligations attached.

Jaffe seems to be among those guys who enjoy Halo, but don't believe it's worth the attention. Here's what he told Sony's Adam Orth:

I just don't get HALO. I don't think the story is all that special, don't think the world or characters matter much. I don't know if I am simply not 'getting it' and it really is all that...or Microsoft has simply purchased rabid fan reactions for what is a great game but nothing more.

Make no mistakes though, because Jaffe stressed it out that he likes Halo. He even considers himself as among the minority who enjoyed Halo 2's single player more than the first. "I DO LIKE HALO! I just don't get the religious fervor and feel much of the fervor has been purchased by Microsoft," Jaffe commented.

Orth, on the other hand, is not very fond of Halo; their conversation kicked off because of his dislike of a Halo 3 ad, after all. He made his opinions with strong words, but we'll leave them on Jaffe's blog. Find the entire post by clicking on the Read link below.

Gametrailers is running the Bonus Round show again, as David Jaffe sat down with industry experts Michael Pachter, N'gai Croal, Billy Berghammer and Shane Satterfield to talk about third-party publishers and games.

Electronic Arts (EA), being a major third-party publisher that churns out more titles than we can count per year, was definitely a hot topic. Harmonix' Rock Band is going to rock the world, no doubt about it. The big dilemma Satterfield sees is how the peripherals will be priced to make it sell. Will a phenomenal game come at a phenomenal price?

It's no secret that Guitar Hero appealed to both hardcore and casual gamers alike. Croal believes that hardcore fans will dish out money to purchase the full experience Rock Band has to offer, while their casual friends will walk in to play along before deciding to get their own set of peripherals.

EA also boasts of other long running franchises, but analysts find faults in the giant company's business model. New titles are going for EA because they want new IPs, but Pachter sees their attempts to be creative as not strong enough. EA kills new IPs that don't work, which still limits new franchises according to Pachter.

Ubisoft is unavoidable when speaking of third-parties. Analysts find Ubisoft to be very inventive, which will put pressure on EA. Assassin's Creed is currently a big question mark, but everyone expects it to be very big.

Grand Theft Auto IV is another title that is said to break boundaries and become phenomenal. Analysts have agreed that Rockstar doesn't even need to hype the game to sell like hotcakes, and seeing GTA IV on E3 is unlikely. Pachter, however, thinks that Halo 3's release might weaken GTA IV sales, which will come out three weeks after. He added that Xbox owners aren't GTA players, and Halo fans will be too indulged in their game to even bother with GTA IV.

Finally, Metal Gear Solid 4: The Guns of the Patriots. They called it the killer app, the game, the pinnacle of Sony's hardware that will show what their machine is all about, the one that will prove that the PlayStation 3 is beyond Xbox 360's reach; in other words, it's the third-party title you can't miss.

For the full Bonus Round feature, click on the Read link below.

Below is the concluding part of episode 4 (the same one where Jaffe comments on Blu-ray) of GameTrailer's Crossfire-esque videogames talk show, "The Bonus Round". In it is Sony's David Jaffe, thatgamecompany's Kellee Santiago, and Naked Sky's Josh Glazer.

In this video, they talk about the appeal of small downloadable video games. The talk about how small games give gamers who don't have time for 30-hour epics the gaming fix that they need.

What's noteworthy here is Josh Glazer saying that even if RoboBlitz dished out its gameplay in hour-sized chunks, feedback from players indicated that they wanted it shorter. Apparently, their market was a bit annoyed with the learning curve, and wanted the bite-sized game snappier. Like a music video. Enough explaining, watch it yourself:

We particularly like that bit in the discussion about innovation in big games versus innovation in small downloadable games. What's nice about that one is that they noted that a game, large or small, always tries to have something new in it, because that's what sells.

Well, folks? What's your take on this? Do you want Sony to give Josh Glazer some dev kits? Let us know through the comments.

A legend known for his single most addicting puzzle game Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov demonstrates how the most simple of solutions can be the most attractive of all. It's no wonder he'll be receiving the First Penguin Award at the 2007 GDCA.

Pitting him up against game designers Harvey Smith (Midway Games) and David Jaffe (God of War, Twisted Metal), the contest was called "The Game Design Challenge: The Needle and Thread Interface."

In honor of the innovative control interfaces for games today, the contest armed contestants with a needle, some thread and a piece of fabric to be used as the input device. All three designers were to conjure up a hypothetical game, which should use all three instruments as an way of input for the game.

Pajitnov's design, called Stitch & Cross, was a basic sewing racing game where two players have at each other in an effort to reach the one side of a common playing field. One player stitches horizontally, while the other stitches vertically. A player could thwart the other's efforts by crossing the opponent's stitch with his own.

Smith involved a much more elaborated version for a control interface, dividing the fabric into different patches of cloth which would represent a certain task of control. When the player poked the any patch, the corresponding command would be called - like a joystick with needles for fingers. His game concept was called The Tailor's Daughter, an action adventure game with an actual story.

Jaffe devised a game that would allow the player to manipulate the fabric into paper airplanes, which can be flown to see which travels faster or further. In the end, Pajitnov was able to steal the win from reigning champion Smith, after the audience supported him with cheers right from the beginning of his participation. The friendly contest was hosted by GameLab's Eric Zimmerman, who said:

There’s nothing stopping us from conceiving of games and from having exercises like the game design challenge. There’s nothing to stop you from making a game inspired by what you’ve seen today ... it’s up to us at the Game Developers Conference to make games better.

Joseph Olin, president of The Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences, has faced controversy over the past two years due to the exclusion of Resident Evil 4 and Okami in the final awards votes.

Not including Okami does of course seem a bit off, especially if the body holding the awards was established to promote games as a valid art form. Okami not a finalist? Not artistic enough? Well, the thing is, to be eligible to be listed as a finalist, the Academy requires that the publisher of the game be an Academy member.

The controversy here, of course, is that Capcom has publicly called this Academy policy nothing more than buying an award. The fuel that turned the fire into an inferno was when God of War's David Jaffe told the crowd at DICE, "Thank God for Capcom. We're probably going to be able to pick up some awards tonight."

IGN reports that here's Olin's take on the whole issue:

The issue of Capcom's participation in the [awards] is an election by Capcom not to be a member of the Academy, ...Most of the other professional organizations [in other mediums] have membership fees and awards participation fees. Ours are minimal. End of story. They should not be a hurdle. It would be unfair to all the other publishers, all the other developers, all the independent game makers who have been Academy members for [up to] ten years... to let Capcom [be exempt].

As for Okami not making it as one of the finalists, here's Olin's defense:

The peer panelists, of which we have close to 400, determine which games they want to recognize. It's not like we give them a list of games they must award. Okami was considered this year... Okami did not make it as a finalist in some of the key categories this year as determined by the voters. It wasn't determined by rule. If it had been named a finalist, Capcom would [then be asked to become a member of the Academy].

Okay, fine. We get the reasoning, again we ask the question (this time to the 400 peer panelists): Why not Okami?