Hit the jump to read the answers from Denise Kaigler, Nintendo of America’s vice president of Corporate Affairs; John Koller, director of hardware marketing, SCEA; and XNA General Manager Boyd Multerer.

Do you think educational games are a good fit for your console either via a standard disc title or downloadable title?
Kaigler
The response of consumers to games like Brain Age for Nintendo DS demonstrated to the entire industry that games with an educational theme were viable. Brain Age remains a top seller, which tells us people are hungry for different kinds of entertainment, including those that stimulate your brain. We have already seen Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree for the Wii console. Wii is a good fit for educational games because the pointing and motion-sensing abilities of the Wii Remote controller allow for more dynamic inputs than simply pressing a button.

Koller
Consoles and handhelds can be a great platform for educational games because they leverage advanced technology while providing an interface that’s intuitive to users. Teens and younger children in particular are familiar with how to interact with games on these systems, so whether it’s for entertainment or education, consoles and handhelds are a natural fit. As far as the medium, both disc and downloadable titles would be appropriate.

Multerer
As part of the XNA team, I don't want to speculate as to the overall strategy of the console. What I can tell you is that with Xbox LIVE Community Games, we're opening the floodgates to the community to create any type of game they want to see on Xbox 360, including educational games. What we've seen through programs like Imagine Cup, Dream-Build-Play, Games for Change and the Community Games beta is that developers are interested in making games that are educational and socially responsible, and we're now giving them a forum to do that and reach millions for the first time on any console.

When Xbox LIVE Community Games launches as part of the new Xbox Experience this holiday, we fully expect to see fun titles that span the entire spectrum of gaming. That means we'll see games that intentionally have an educational focus like "City Rain," "Future Flow" and "Clean Up" which were all created by teams of university students to teach concepts of environmental sustainability.

Why do you think educational games haven't really found their way onto the current generation of consoles?

Kaigler
I'm not sure about the overall reason, however, educational software on our portable Nintendo DS has gained a foothold. Games like Brain Age and Big Brain Academy demonstrate that the public enjoys video games with educational themes. You also see a variety of third-party software with brain-training themes.

Koller
We’re still in the relatively early days of the current generation of consoles, and when you consider that PS3 will have a 10-year lifecycle, it takes time before secondary applications start to take shape. With the PSP, now in its fourth year of its lifecycle, there are educational games. We work with PLATO Learning, which develops educational software for children as part of its PLATO Achieve Now on PSP program. PLATO provides the software and PSP units to grammar schools that are interested in adding an interactive component to their curriculum.

But it’s not just about math and science. Our first-party PlayStation 2 title, Eye Toy: Kinetic, provides fitness education, while our Buzz franchise has an educational component delivered through the more entertaining format of a quiz show.

Multerer
Up until recently, with the release of free development tools like XNA Game Studio, console games have been extremely expensive to make. They're expensive for developers and publishers alike, sometimes costing upwards of tens of millions of dollars, which means that everyone is less likely to take risks with new or unproven concepts. With Xbox LIVE Community Games, we're able to give those sometimes risky, experimental and innovative titles an opportunity to make their way to consumers at little cost to the developer. For the first time ever, Microsoft is opening the floodgates for those developers to prove that an educational game can be a blockbuster.

Is your company currently developing any educational games for your platform?

Kaigler
It depends on how you're defining educational games. Games like Mystery Case Files: MillionHeir for Nintendo DS require a close attention to detail, while the upcoming Wii Music teaches about different musical instruments and can lead to a greater appreciation for music. Many other games require skills like problem solving or teamwork. And then you have software like the “Coach” series from Ubisoft that is designed to teach users something new, such as a language or vocabulary. They have My Spanish Coach, My French Coach, My Japanese Coach, My Word Coach and even My Weight Loss Coach. Nintendo’s upcoming Personal Trainer: Cooking for Nintendo DS helps people out in the kitchen and can even teach you to make new dishes. The “educational” label can apply to all kinds of games.

Koller
Yes, see above.

Multerer
Again, I don't want to speak to the overall console strategy, but what I can say is that with Community Games we are leaving it open so that the community can create any type of game they want to see on Xbox 360, including educational games. We've already seen the beginnings of this, through programs like Imagine Cup, Games for Change, Dream-Build-Play and the Community Games beta. These programs have proven that developers are interested in making games that are educational and socially responsible, and we are excited to bring them a forum to do more of this and reach millions for the first time on a console.

When Xbox LIVE Community Games launches as part of the new Xbox Experience this holiday, we fully expect to see fun titles that span the entire spectrum of gaming. That means we'll see games that intentionally have an educational focus like "City Rain," "Future Flow" and "Clean Up" which were all created teams of university students to teach concepts of environmental sustainability.

The concept of corporate social responsibility argues that a company should consider the interests of society in their business decisions, to go beyond basic obligations and on occasion do something for the greater good. Do you think that concept pertains to the gaming industry as well?

Kaigler
Absolutely. Nintendo works regularly with a number of charities, most notably the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation, which works to place video game consoles in children’s hospitals. Having video games on hand for kids helps reduce anxiety and boredom during hospital stays.

Koller
Corporate social responsibility absolutely applies to the gaming industry. One great example of how SCEA is contributing to society is our partnership with Folding@home, which enables PS3 owners to offer the computing power of their system to support research into fighting diseases such as Alzheimer’s and cancer.

Multerer
Whether we have a responsibility to consider the greater good or not, Microsoft has been a leader in this space by working with game creators to provide the resources and tools necessary to create games that positively impact society. What we've seen through programs like the Imagine Cup, Dream-Build-Play, Games for Change and the Community Games beta is that developers are interested in making games that are educational and socially responsible, and with Xbox LIVE Community Games, we're giving them a forum to do that for the first time on a console and reach millions. When the Community Games channel launches as part of the new Xbox Experience this holiday, we fully expect to see fun titles that span the entire spectrum of gaming. That means we'll see games that intentionally have an educational focus like "City Rain," "Future Flow" and "Clean Up" which were all created teams of university students to teach concepts of environmental sustainability.

Beyond that, Microsoft has always been a major proponent of working with academic institutions globally to help train the next generation of game developers. Our schools are having a harder and harder time recruiting students who want to major in the computer sciences. A study by UCLA found that between 2000 and 2005, the percentage of incoming undergrads who indicated they would major in Computer Science dropped by 70 percent. Numerous other studies and stories show that the US IT industry will not be able to find the talent needed to continue to grow the industry - resulting in additional pressure for outsourcing. We have been working with universities to help reverse this trend by incorporating game development into their curricula with XNA Game Studio, and universities are responding very positively. What better way to excite the programmers of tomorrow than the opportunity to make their own games?

I don't mean to say that these major efforts by Microsoft are entirely altruistic, this is a business, but we've been able to reach out in ways that open doors to aspiring developers and create opportunities for more socially responsible game creation, while ensuring that the best games continue to be made for Xbox 360.

As the industry tries to grow by widening its user base and extend its reach past traditional hard-core gamers to parents and children, should companies invest in developing educational games for their console and sell them for little or even give them away?

Kaigler
That’s an interesting proposition. Our focus has always been on entertainment. Our WiiWare downloadable game service offers a great opportunity for companies large and small to create all kinds of games – educational games included – and offer them at a fraction of the cost of a disc-based game. We’ve already seen dozens of new WiiWare games from developers that have big ideas but smaller budgets.

Koller
If it fits a publisher’s business model, educational games can be a tremendous opportunity to both expand the traditional user base, while contributing to the greater good. Price is less of a concern than distribution, as retailers are more apt to give space to better selling genres. This is why digital distribution is such an exciting avenue for educational titles.

Multerer
We're already seeing that happen in many ways. Over the past year Microsoft has been supporting the development of educational games through programs like Imagine Cup and with organizations like Games for Change. We've also seen through Dream-Build-Play and the Community Games beta that developers are interested in making games that appeal to a whole new range of gamers, like parents and children, and we're now giving them a forum to reach those consumers in their living rooms.

When Xbox LIVE Community Games launches as part of the new Xbox Experience this holiday, we fully expect to see fun titles that span the entire spectrum of gaming. That means we'll see games that intentionally have an educational focus like "City Rain," "Future Flow" and "Clean Up" which were all created teams of university students to teach concepts of environmental sustainability.

Apple found great success by targeting schools in the 1980s with affordable or even donated computers for classrooms. Do you see a time when consoles could also find their way into classrooms as a valid educational tool?

Kaigler
Wii and Nintendo DS are focused on entertainment, but they also have plenty of software that people are using to enrich their lives in other ways, such as Brain Age and Wii Fit. Recently we also have seen a trend of libraries incorporating Wii into their programming.

Koller
They already have through PLATO’s work with the PSP and previously with the PSone and PlayStation 2.

Multerer
Absolutely. We have always believed that reaching out to universities and schools to integrate XNA development tools into the curriculum is fundamental to ensuring that great games continue to be created for Xbox 360. In 2005 we released XNA Game Studio, a set of development tools offering an approachable and affordable way for students and hobbyists to develop video games for Windows-based PCs and Xbox 360, and last year we announced that we would offer a free trial Creators Club membership for students and educational institutions, which we hope will help spark additional interest in game development and programming. The beauty of this program is that universities aren't required to have special hardware on hand that could potentially cost tens of thousands of dollars, but games created with XNA Game Studio will run on any retail Xbox 360 console.

XNA Game Studio has seen a surge of momentum this past year with more than 1,000,000 downloads, adoption by nearly 700 academic institutions globally and the creation of more than nine books on the tools in development since its release in 2005. The programs are still extremely new, but the excitement we've seen from both the development and academic communities has been overwhelming and we only expect to build on that momentum with the launch of Xbox LIVE Community Games as part of the New Xbox Experience this holiday.

We are heads and shoulders above our competitors in this space. We were the first to offer a free development toolset with XNA Game Studio, we are the first to pioneer full academic access to our next-gen console and development toolset, and we are pioneers in the space of community game development and user-generated content. More than either of our closest competitors we are providing the best, most accessible tools and the open game distribution channel over Xbox LIVE to ensure that the best games continue to be built for the Xbox 360 platform.

Do you think that the industry’s console holders have a responsibility to create the sort of games that can be held up as an example of the positive influence games can have on children?

Kaigler
I think our vast library of games promotes a positive influence with kids. This library includes games that go beyond teaching the alphabet or multiplication tables. Wii and Nintendo DS have been at the forefront of the social gaming phenomenon. Friends play together and have fun. And the intuitive controls for our systems make them easy for anyone to pick up and play, which means different generations can play together. Games can open up the imagination, just like a good book or movie can.

Koller
LittleBigPlanet is exactly the type of game with the potential to be held up as providing a positive influence. The ability for gamers to create and share their own levels delivers a whole new level of interactivity in gaming that’s never been seen before. Children will be able to express their creativity in LittleBigPlanet, and perhaps we’ll see the game will drive some children to pursue a career in the videogame industry.

Multerer
Whether we have a responsibility or not, Microsoft has been a leader in this space by working with game creators to provide the tools necessary to create games for children that inspire learning and healthfulness. Not only have we supported programs like the Imagine Cup and Games for Change, worked with universities to incorporate XNA tools into the curriculum to help spark interest in design and programming for the next-generation of developers, and offered affordable tools and an accessible pipeline to anyone who wants to reach children and families with educational game content, Microsoft Research recently partnered with New York University (NYU) and a consortium of universities to launch the Games for Learning Institute (G4LI).

The G4L Institute will study how educators can harness student predisposition toward technology to engage students and boost interest in math and science. The goal of this partnership is to identify, through scientific research, the key elements that make games fun and effective and translate those findings into the design and development of games as learning tools. The research will complement and extend existing research programs at NYU and Microsoft Research and will be shared broadly with researchers, game developers and educators in the hopes of pointing the way to a new era of using games for educational purposes.

It sounds amazing and looks rather lovely for a game with a scalable engine, allowing it to run on computers old and new, which is why every time I write about the game I'm surprised more people aren't aware of it. Hell, when I sat in with Codemasters' Lilit Baron last week at E3, he almost seemed pleasantly surprised that I had been keeping up with the game. Codemasters is gearing up to cure the rampant ignorance over Jumpgate Evolution, and the screenshots and accompanying Q&A, which you'll find after the jump, are just the beginning.

Jumpgate Evolution

How long has Jumpgate Evolution been in development?
 
NetDevil, the experienced US based MMO developer have been working in MMOs for a number of years, and have recently turned to Jumpgate Evolution in the last two years. This is an ongoing process and the game will continue to be developed for many years to come post release.   

What makes Jumpgate unique?

Jumpgate brings together popular elements from all time classics such as Elite, X-wing Vs Tie-fighter and Privateer and combines them in a living, breathing persistent world. Gone are the days of point and click combat, Jumpgate puts the action at your fingertips with fully responsive twitch based controls like never seen in any previous massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMO).

Beyond this Jumpgate is being developed as being an accessible / intuitive game experience providing the soft comfortable learning curve of a new game along with the depth needed for hardcore gamers. Much like World of Warcraft which made fantasy MMO gaming accessible for the masses it is the expectation of Jumpgate to replicate this within the space sci-fi MMO genre.

Can you give us some information on the background lore of the game?

The lore surrounding Jumpgate is something that is constantly being worked on and evolved, as all good stories should. Without going into to much detail and ruining some of the surprises that will come up as you play the game, and a few juicy bits that will be revealed by our community team, I can tell you this much.

There are 3 nations in Jumpgate, all of whom are human and used to live in the Milky Way as one. These were war ravaged times for humanity as they fought a constant battle with the mysterious conflux who were hell bent on destruction of all life and nothing else…there was no reasoning to be had…just a unquenchable blood lust.

With humanity on the verge of annihilation the future looked bleak until there was a massive ‘shift’ and the majority of humanity were flung to the other side of the universe. Away from the Conflux they set about rebuilding themselves and fragmented into 3 differing factions adhering to their own ideals.

Once established they started to reach out further into their new territory, encountering new life amongst the wreckage of long lost alien societies. This semi-peaceful exploration was soon shattered by the re-emergence of the Conflux! Using unstable wormhole technology they started appearing sporadically through out the sector. It is in this unstable time that we join the tale…

Can you give us an overview of NetDevil and their involvement with Jumpgate?

NetDevil are the developers responsible for the creation of the Jumpgate universe, as well as its ongoing development. They are the cornerstone of the project creating the game and server code that will allow players to live out their space fantasies. The team is made of very experienced programmers, artists, technical engineers and producers who will work closely with the team at Codemasters Online to bring the game to market.

NetDevil have great pedigree as one of the few companies that have successfully launched and run an MMO. In addition to Jumpgate they are also working on the Lego MMO.

Can you give us an overview of Codemasters Online and their involvement with Jumpgate?

Codemasters Online was established 3 years ago as part of the larger Codemasters organisation focusing specifically within the area of online games; with a number of titles under its belt; including the phenomenally popular The Lord of the Rings Online in Europe.

Codemasters Online will be responsible for the publishing of Jumpgate across N.America / Europe and will also be operating the game in Europe.

When is the BETA going Live?

Commencement dates for the Jumpgate BETA are yet to be announced with full details to be announced first on the games official global portal.

Where can I get more information on the game?

For more information on Jumpgate or to sign up for the BETA visit the games official global portal at www.jumpgateevolution.com

While this is precisely the news that all Rock Band fans have been waiting to hear, it raises a ton of new questions. Is $14.99 the new standard album price? And how often can we expect new albums? Luckily, we had the chance to discuss the announcement with Harmonix's CEO Alex Rigopulos, who was more than happy to answer all of our fanboy questions. We posted an abridged, cleaned (sans-Mark's-question-stuttering-and-boring-parts) Q&A after the jump.

What took you so long?
...a big reason that it's taken us so long to get them to market is that the actual technical delivery of the assets required for any one song - they're actually pretty complicated. You're often dealing with masters for the older stuff that were recorded on analog. Often it takes a long time to even locate those masters. The right takes and the right edits have to be found, and in some cases old gear that's not in use anymore has to be resuscitated to transfer the stuff to digital. And so for any one song, the actual process of finding the right tape, resuscitating it and transferring it to the right digital format that we need and all that is an undertaking...

If you're just going for a handful of tracks by a particular artist and they're slow to locate one of them, well you just pick a different track and go on. Well when you're looking for a dozen tracks ina a particular album, you cant really release the album until you've tracked every one of those assets.

What happened to The Who?
We will have a specific announcement about that coming up soon regarding some work that we have coming down the pike with The Who in general that I think people are gonna be pretty happy about...and in general what you're gonna see sorta deep dives with particular artists, where with some artists...of the appropriate stature, you'll see us doing more than whole albums, potentially even entire catalogs.

What kind of schedule will album release be on?
For album releases, in particular, there isn't a set schedule like an album a month...we do want to release albums regularly...generally, the amount of content we release in a week you'll see growing over the course of the year substantially.

Will albums ever represent the majority of your music releases?
I don't think albums will be the dominant release. I don't think we're going to switch to primarily releasing albums, but I will say, in addition to these three we've just mentioned, we actually have MANY in the pike...suffice it to say, it will be a substantial portion of our content offering going forward.

So is $14.99 the new standard album price?
It's not a standard. There's not going to be a standard album pricing. It's going to be a function of how many songs are included in the album...essentially there will be a volume discount applied.

Do you think a variable price rate on albums is disadvantage, especially when stores like iTunes sell albums for a flat rate?
Perhaps, but I think...consumers have demonstrated that they feel that the value they're getting for a game level based at $2 is enormous...[and] there's quite a lot of appetite for music at $2 a song...[so] volume discounts for more music represents quite a good value for the consumers.

Will you ever offer 3-Pack discounts for album tracks?
At this time we're not...I'm not ruling that out as something we're doing in the future. It's just not something we're doing right now.

Would you ever consider releasing "greatest hits" albums?
I don't see any particular reason why we would rule them out...I think that for the right artist under the right circumstances, there's no reason we wouldn't consider doing a greatest hits album that either exists in the world already as a recorded compilation, or [as] in some cases, we've actually had artists come to us who are interested in kind of curating their own new greatest hits compilation for the purpose of Rock Band release. And so I think we're really pretty versatile to ideas of that sort.

So basically, a Rock Band Greatest Hits album?
Exactly.
(Ed note: Rigopulos later explained that they kind of did this with Grateful Dead tracks already, unofficially.)

At the end of the interview, Rigopulos let me know that Rock Band had recently surpassed 8 million song downloads. That's about 2 million just since their new store opened (and Still Alive became offered for free).

11:08 AM : Play that Funky Music White Boy is playing on the PA, and a small crowd has gathered for the Q&A that was supposed to start 8 minutes ago. Oh, here we go! Jamil and Perry take the stage!

Jamil is talking about how awesome Dave Perry is. I tend to agree. We are pleased an honored! Applause!

First question...are you the tallest developer in the industry? Yes, yes he is. Even taller than Phil Harrison. He gets the same thing I did in high school. Everyone wanted him for sports. I feel his pain.

Perry is talking about the gaming scene in Northern Ireland in the 80's. Programming in basic, self-publishing, creating booklets. Games in plastic bags on a cassette tape. Those were the days.

He programmed on a Sinclair ZX81. You needed imagination to play games back then. The industry was revolutionized when the 16k memory module came out. He's showing picture of old games. I'll show you those a bit later.

Jamil's next question: Was there a peer group you could work with?

They would have little meets. Perry got his start handing out stickers dressed up like a creepy cartoon character at trade shows.

Haha! Early tries at photorealism. Taking photos, scanning them and editing them.

What games and developers inspired you? Ooo, good question.

He looked up to Peter Molyneux, Chris and Tim Stamford from Rare.

What could you earn during the early days of game development?

Early jobs paid nearly nothing. Starting at nothing, but once a game succeeded your salary would quickly increase.

He wrote a platformer for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for the PC, Commodore and AMiga in a week back then.

He moved to the US when Virgin Games needed him to make a McDonald's game called Mick & Mack's Global Gladiators for the Genesis. LOL. McDonald's hated it at first. It won game of the year, but the company was mad that you couldn't buy burgers in the game.

Talking about the Richard Branson parachuting manuever into the press conference for Disney's Aladdin game, one of the best Disney games ever incidentally.

Jamil: How did you get into a position that you could create your own games within a big company like Virgin?

Once you hit a few out of the park they'll pretty much do anything you ask them to.

On Messiah: "We expected hardcore gamers to buy a game with a crying baby on the box."

Yay Earthworm Jim! Proof that you don't have to be big to get a lot done. Toys, cartoons, Taco Bell toys, No fire extinguishers though.

Hello Kitty is a good place to go for merchandising ideas.

While pitching Earthworm Jim to MGM Universal, studio head Sid Sheinberg came into the room yelling at people, and then told Perry to pitch. Halfway through the pitch Sheinberg interrupted. "This is confidential.Pigs. Pigs are gonna be big. There's been dogs, there's been cats. Pigs. Continue." He went on to create Babe. A visionary!

How do you get a cartoon for Earthworm Jim without a toy line in place, and vice versa?

He invited the head of the toy company and cartoon company out to dinner, where they looked eachother in the eye and said, "I'll do it if you do it."

"Food is the key to everything."

MDK. The publisher didn't see it. It was the first no they got from a publisher. They had built their whole pitch on the innovative sniper helmet the game featured.

They took the same storyboards they used for the initial pitched and created a video. They loved it so much they wanted a toy line and a tv SHOW.

"If you have a great game idea don't write about it...show it"

On the Matrix. Jamil is asking him why there was no game for the first film.They were working on sacrifice. He met with the Wachowskis and all they had to demonstrate bullet time was a burning barrel. They passed on it.

The ESRB wasn't going to give Enter the Matrix a teen rating due to the kiss between two female characters. Shiny's response?

"It's not two women kissing, it's two computer programs kissing."

The ESRB bought it. Hilarious.

Now they are discussing the Top Secret MMO racing game project. How the community took over. They created forums, a wiki, and just basically took over the whole process. It's exciting because he never knows what they are going to do next.

They've come up with very original ideas. Commentator mode, where one player acts as a color commentary during the races for instance. People would fight for a chance to MC the big races. The idea was nothing a traditional game development team would have come up with.

The design stage is done, and the development phase is beginning. "I don't expect them to go kick Tim Sweeny's ass." I am sure Tim is relieved.

Announcing a deal with Mod Center to deliver free development tools to the Top Secret community. Acclaim will pay for any game engine in the world for whoever wins the Top Secret competition. Wow.

The winner gets an industry standard publishing deal and $100,000 cash as their first royalty. They are giving young developers a chance.

The project will also be an iinteresting viral marketing test, as the community will be telling their friends and so on and so on.

The game will ultimately be free to play. Perry went to the biggest publisher in China to explore the microtransaction / play for free model. Showing slides of his trip.

"The old game model we used to use is archaic." The microtransaction model brings in much more money than the standard $49.99 he used to charge for PC games. "The free to play model works fantastic in the US, even better than China." Combined with in-game advertising it is a really good model for the states.

If a Kojima-level personality from China comes to the US and starts delivering games of that quality from China it will have an amazing impact on the gaming industry here. Disruptive innovation, like the digital camera changing Polaroid's business.

The Wiimote is truly disruptive. Nintendo has disrupted our industry. None of Perry's favorite games or games he is looking for are on the Wii. When the great games come out for the 360 and PS3, people aren't going to be content bowling with their Wiimote.

He is talking about the game Plague that he wanted to make, that would have taken $17 million to create. It made him start to worry about how games are created and sold.In China he found free fully-funded MMO teams. He is developing 6 MMOs now, three of which are unannounced.

Until the PS3 is everywhere he can't see himself creating a big budget game.

Added some pics to the bottom here.

Awww, we are out of time. That was much more entertaining than I thought it would be. Thanks for sticking with me on this, my very first liveblog!

Xbox Community Manager and Europe's Major Nelson, Graeme Boyd, just posted a Q&A with Catan lead developer Brian Reynolds. (You may know him from Civ II and Rise of Nations)

The interview covers a lot of ground including the original board game's success, why it works on Live and how best to get started if you've never played:

Do you have any tips to help people get started with Catan? Brian Reynolds: Yes! When the two dice are rolled for resource production each turn, numbers in the middle like 6 and 8 will be rolled a lot more often than numbers at the extremes like 2 and 12. So count the "dots" on each land tile, which show how likely that tile is to be rolled. Settlement spots next to the largest number of dots will usually generate the most total income! Another good thing to remember at the beginning is to try to get at least one of your settlements next to a good "Brick" tile, because everyone needs a lot of brick at the beginning of the game and you'll be "in demand" as a trading partner!"

Check out the interview over on Boyd's blog. Brian Crecente

Catan Q&A: Your Introduction to Settling [Spaces]

OMG that's a long interview, eight pages to be specific.

Robert Howarth points out that Popular Science has the mother of all interviews up with Spore creator Will Wright. In it Wright talks about many things, but I'll trust Howarth that this was the most interesting thing:

How do you think the audience for Spore may be different from your other games? I think we're probably going to be capturing some more hardcore gamers, just because of the scope of the game and the unusual nature of it. I'm looking hopefully at a big overlap with The Sims players, though - I want to make sure the game is not too hard or complex for the average Sims player. But if you look at Sims 2, it's actually a very complex game, and it surprised me how easily players migrated from Sims 1 to Sims 2. And if anything, the interface and controls of Spore should be much simpler and more streamlined than Sims 2. Next is, will the theme of content and worlds and space and science be appealing, and I think primarily the creatures are our hook there. If you can make weird, cool goofy creatures that show emotion and have societies and do dances and stuff, I think if you look at the graphics for Neopets and Pokemon -Neopets especially is actually quite gender balanced. So I think really we're looking at those two groups as probably the first core groups, half Sims players, half hardcore competitive gamers looking for something novel, and maybe a third, people coming from totally outside. I've had a lot of people, when I've demoed Spore coming up and saying "I've never played a game before, but I want to play this one." And I think those people are attracted by the empowerment of the tools, they would really like the experience of creating a Pixar character and having it come to life.

Sheesh, even that one answer was long. Brian Crecente

Spore in Popular Science [Voodoo Extreme]

The Cult of Rapture, a new community site for 2k Games' Bioshock, has landed on the tubes. There's quite a bit there, although a lot of it is the same stuff you can find on the game's official website; screenshots, trailers and a description of the game's plot.

What this site does have, however, is a Q&A with an Irrational Games representative and questions gathered from game sites and forums from around the web. One big question addressed on the site is whether Bioshock will have any sort of multiplayer or online gaming action. The mysterious unnamed rep had this to say...

There will be no multiplayer (hold on before you complain!!!!) but for a very specific reason. BioShock features a compelling storyline that revolves around the experiences of one man as he enters the decaying world of Rapture. Having a multiplayer component would have compromised the story we were trying to tell so we made the decision to keep this game as a single player experience. There will be an online component, however, where new content can be downloaded.

Personally, I am more than willing to give up multiplayer for a really good, solid storyline. And judging from everything I've seen of this game, I'm certainly not going to miss it much.

There are nine or ten other questions in the Q&A covering different topics such as whether or not there will be a playable demo and my personal favorite "Can you hype Ken Levine more like CliffyB?" Flynn De Marco

The Cult of Rapture [2k Games]
[via Blue's News]

* Song You Are Currently Listening to: Car Wash, but that's been running in my head since the 70s.

* Game/System You Are Looking Forward to the Most: Heavenly Sword, Gears of War, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. There really isn't one that stands out right now.

* Supernatural Power of Choice: Food vision.

* Most Expensive Thing You Ever Stole: A little plastic pony I swiped from a flea market when I was six.

* Favorite Arcade Game: All of the Street Fighters.

* Last Gadget Purchased: Treo 700w though my most idiotic gadget purchase was a Robomower. Want to buy a Robomower, cheap?

* Favorite Holiday: Halloween... or Christmas, I wish there was a Chrisween...um, make that Hallomas.

If you're interested in me, and who isn't, hop on over to the link. Man, even though I was laughing when I wrote that last bit, it still comes off as immensely egotystical. Wombats FTW!

And for two extra points, name the movie I quoted at the end of the Q&A. Brian Crecente

Brian Crecente [Tied the Leader]

In the Q&A Daily Game touch on developing for Sony's next-gen console, the inspiration for the game, how the single-player mode was designed and such. Here's a taste:

DailyGame: One of the things that's so intriguing about Heavenly Sword is its fighting sequences. We imagine you were influenced a bit by fighting games, but where did you draw the most inspiration for the gameplay?

Mat Hart: We were inspired mainly by film, to be honest with you. Wushu films, things like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Hero, that kind of thing. It's that over-the-top, cinematic, beautiful ballet that builds up to the fighting that really gave us our inspiration.
DG: The combo system, though, with juggling enemies in the air...there's not exactly a lot of juggling in Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon.

MH: Well, I'm not sure if that's really true, actually. I think I'd have to disagree with you on that. I think our combat is an expression of the unique worlds that are in some of the Wushu films. There are fantastic elements to those films, and certainly there's a cinematic element, but we recognize that for our game, the important thing is that the combat system be accessible and yet deep. So we've worked long and hard; the combat system has been in development for about two years, completely from scratch. We've got an amazing combat designer, and he's basically put this system together.
Now you've got guys who've never played this game before kicking ass, doing cool moves, looking really great, feeling powerful .You know, you go into power stance and you feel the weight of the weapon, and you're hitting people across the room, but then you flip over into speed stance, and you're dancing all over the place, spinning the blades around, just whacking guys up into the air. It's all really cool, and it flows together well, and we're really excited about it.
DG: What we saw at E3 was obviously an arena type area. Can you talk at all about the single-player portion of Heavenly Sword, and maybe some of the other levels we might see?

MH: Basically you've got a half dozen chapters, and they tell the story of Nariko through her journey with the Sword. The environments are all very different, very varied. The chapter that that particular arena was in is part of a vast level built in sort of a water garden with waterfalls and beautiful scenery all around you, mountains all around, that sort of setting.

Hit the link for the full interview. This is one of the PS3 games that I'm pretty excited about, though Resistance: Fall of Man is starting to tantalize me a bit too now. Brian Crecente

Heavenly Sword Q&A [Daily Game]

The less said about this Best Buy advertisement (which apes a Gamespot 'feature' so successfully that we actually had to rub our eyes a few times in total incredulity few minutes before we discerned the difference), the better. In it, three Best Buy blue shirt putzes regurgitate common gamer knowledge about the next gen with authority.

We wouldn't even link it if Cheap Ass Gamer hadn't so expertly skewered it. Hit the original, then hit the parody. They cynically aced the feel with only a tithing of the pedestrian verbiage!

Ooooo! I think I know who Best Buy's going to try to sue next! Florian Eckhardt

Best Buy Q&A [Gamespot]
Not A Best Buy Q&A at Gamespot [Cheap Ass Gamer]

I'll admit that I might have drank away most of my impressions from the Sony press conference, but one game that did manage to wake me up after watching Ridge Racer emulated on the PSP was Naughty Dog's untitled PS3 project. Sporting a refreshing look, beautiful animation and lighting, the still moniker-less third person action adventure title looked hot—without a space marine in sight, to boot.

Also refreshing, Naughty Dog designer Evan Wells perspective on next-gen games and where his dev house stands:

Looking at the landscape of next-generation games being developed it was clear that there were a gluttony of titles that featured bald, buff space marines wearing body armor and fighting aliens. Fortunately for us, we didn't have much interest in heading in that direction and we felt that we could work in a style that really excited us and stand out from the crowd at the same time.

Sweet. The more guys with hair on the PS3, the better. Read the full Q&A at IGN for more. MICHAEL MCWHERTOR

Q&A: Naughty Dog's PS3 Project

Gamespot has posted a Q&A with Blizzard's lead designer Jeff Kandel about the upcoming WoW expansion Burning Crusade. There's lots of questions involving rationale for picking the — hello? — Draenei and the way socketable items and jewel crafting will work, but we personally dug this exchange about falling off of your Pegasus in the Outlands, a mile up:

GS: Is there a way to get knocked off the mount?

JK: Currently, no, but we are talking about iterating on combat mechanics as we get into alpha and beta. Not that we'll ever give you combat on the mount, but for PVP situations, we might have to make it so that you dismount off. Our first philosophy in general when we approach systems is to make it as fun as possible first and nerf it back in alpha or beta. If anything creates an existing world problem, we'll have to fix it.

GS: Are you allowed to drop off the mount in midair?

JK: Yeah!

GS: And if you drop off from too high up, will you crater?

JK: Oh, yeah. Watch. Clicks dismount action. Ahhhhhh. Player falls and takes roughly 3,700 fall damage.

I have sweet little visions of shooting my undead rogue's death ray into the sky and watching a dwarf fall three miles to his death.

World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade Q&A [Gamespot]

If you're the type of gaming scavenger who likes to tear every available piece of meat from the bones of E3 announcements, Bungie has posted a Q&A, answering some questions about the Halo 3 E3 Trailer as murkily as possible. Halo fans will probably be able to read vast cosmic philosophies of significance into answers like this, though... or so 1UP's brief analysis of the Q&A shows:

Q: My wife didn't recognize Cortana when she watched the announcement. I thought Cortana looked exactly the same. But my wife is smarter than me. So, I better ask. Is Cortana any different? She seems somehow different. My wife didn't recognize Cortana when she watched the announcement. I thought Cortana looked exactly the same. But my wife is smarter than me. So, I better ask. Is Cortana any different? She seems somehow different..

Frank: Women know things John. I don't know how they do, they just do.

Analysis: It seems like the meeting with Gravemind at the end of Halo 2 might not have worked out so well — as it appears the A.I. construct, and veritable conscience of Masterchief has gone rampant. Rampancy, in a nutshell, is when an A.I. (like Cortana) becomes aware of itself and develops real emotions. Rewatching (and playing through the Halo games) you'll see Cortana begin to walk down the dangerous path to rampancy.

Bungie Fields Questions on Halo 3 Trailer [1UP]

As a follow up to my interview with Columbine survivor Richard Costaldo about Super Columbine Massacre RPG, I wrote a story about the game for the Rocky Mountain News.

The story includes more comments from Costaldo, some of the background and an interview with the game's creator Columbin. It's also interesting to note that the Rocky is trying to prevent the use of their Pulitzer winning photos in the game.

After reading the story, make sure you check out the full Q&A I did with Columbin and the Q&A with Columbine survivor Richard Costaldo.

Game reopens Columbine wounds [Rocky Mountain News]

Unfortunately, we here at Kotaku aren't smart enough to build a time-machine without Wagner James Au's help, so we can't really start reporting on GDC until a bit later. However, the boys at Firing Squad have put together a Q&A with Jamil Moledin, GDC's director, who supplies some history on the conference and an idea of what we should expect this year:

Our theme this year is What s Next, which means we ll definitely have a great deal of focus on next generation consoles. But not everyone develops for those platforms, and with that in mind there s a lot of changes going on in the industry overall. There s a dramatic push to broaden the market of gamers, find new ways of distributing games and building communities with gamers, as well as creating games in a distributed fashion.

At the very least, worth reading until the real news starts rolling in.

GDC 2006 Interview [Firing Squad]

Ivan Sulic seems bound by some sort of totem not to reveal details about some of Hellgate: London's tastier features, like the multiplayer PVP and modding systems. However, there's still a lot of tasty information on bosses, dynamic emergent quests, how the weapons and combat systems work, players dyeing their clothes and walking around like post-apocalyptic Bozo-the-Clowns and — our favorite subject — brutally dismembering the hordes of hell with a shotgun blast to the abdomen.

If you're excited about Hellgate: London, there's enough detail here to get your O-Ring humming with excitement.

Hellgate Guru Community Interview [Hellgate Guru]

Todd Hollenshead Q&A [Worthplaying]

Gamesblog has posted up a longish Q&A with Project Zero creator Makoto Shibata. Shibata talks about the game's Japanese influences, his own dealings with real-world ghosts and some of the play mechanics of the game.

A sample after the jump:

How does the introduction of these multiple playable characters and their unique abilities affect gameplay?

Rei is the heroine and has both speed and power, making her a well-balanced playable character. She can use 'photoflash', which makes ghosts hesitate in their attacks, thus giving you an advantage in battle. Players get to play as Miku and Kei in Rei's dream. Rei takes on the role of a priestess who feels the suffering of others. In the end though, she will face up to her own suffering.

Miku has strong spiritual power. She can use the camera well, and is able to charge it with the highest spirit power of all the characters. Thus, she can deal out the biggest damage. She also has an item which is able to slow time. On the other hand, her physical power is weak, and the capture circle of her camera is small. She is the character who is the most difficult to master for the player.
Kei has little spiritual power and he can charge the camera only once. However, his camera has a rapid-fire function. Also, he has ability to hide from ghosts. He is the type of character who does not fight a lot, but prefers a stealthy approach.

Each of the three characters has different features - not just in battle, but also in the way they explore. Miku is small and can crawl into tight spaces - even under the floor. Also, some particular spirits will cooperate with her. Kei, in contrast, is physically powerful and can move heavy stuff. He has a lot of knowledge and can read ancient documents. So you see, they each have different roles although they explore the same environments on the map.

I Call it Subtracting Horror [Gamesblog]

Keith Stuart over at The Guardian's Gamesblog did a short email Q&A with John Carmack that just went up on the site. The interview hits a lot of interesting ground for just seven questions. They discuss Doom RPG, gaming on cell phones, the future of the PC market, Carmack's next big thing and the state of indie development. Here's a taste:

I interviewed Peter Molyneux recently and he argued that the videogame industry is too cautious and brand-obsessed these days - he theorised that if things had been the same when Id started out, Doom might never have been published - at least not through traditional retail channels. Do you agree? Has the 'two guys in a garage inventing the next big thing' dream really been killed off by the big publishers?

Well, Doom wasn t originally published through traditional retail channels, it was shareware. The tremendous success there led to the retail release of Doom 2. A similar thing could certainly still happen today, but probably not with a media rich triple-A game title that takes tens of millions of dollars to develop. An independent breakout needs to be clever and cost effective.

I think Stuart did an admirable job, email Q&As are always a pain in the ass because you have to anticipate a lot and can't ask follow-up questions.

A brief John Carmack Interview [Gamesblog]

Nerve put together a fun set of Q&As about sex, violence and the future of video games featuring a panel of seven well known gaming experts.

The panelists are Steven Johnson, Brenda Brathwaite, Ian Bogost, Eric Zimmerman, Henry Jenkins, Rob Levine and Katie Salen.

There are five questions that the group will discuss and it looks like that while the Qs are already up on the site, the As will be coming over the week. The first discussion is already there for all to read.

A taste of the goodness:

Question 1: Is the sexual and violent content of video games a legitimate social concern? Or are Hillary Clinton et. al. criticizing video games for easy political points? And why is there so much more violence than sex in games, anyway?

Henry Jenkins III
First, lets put the question in some historical perspective. As we look across the history of popular culture and new media in the twentieth century, we see the same pattern recurring: each new medium is embraced by young people who are seeking out experiences which they can call uniquely their own and are often drawn towards material which shocks and titilates; parents and adults express a growing dismay because this medium was not part of their own childhood experience and they do not know how to protect their young; some kind of incident occurs which can be loosely tied to the emerging medium and we enter an era of moral panic during which people seek to "do something even if it is wrong" and end up doing the wrong things; the medium withstands a storm of controversy and attempts at regulation which go counter this country's stated support for free expression. At the end of the cycle, the generation which grew up with this medium ends up looking back nostalgically at their misbegotted youths and take as given the place of that form of popular culture as the standard against which new media experiences will be judged and this cycle starts all over again.

Did I ever tell you Jenkins is my hero?

Voicebox [Nerve]

Cliff Bleszinski AKA CliffyB, lead designer for Epic Games' Gears of War and Kotaku reader, shot me an email the other day about an article he read on the site.

After a couple of email exchanges, I asked if he would be willing to be interviewed for my Xbox 360 story for the Rocky Mountain News and perhaps do a short Q&A for Kotaku.

As busy as he must be, CliffyB said he was down for it and I shot him five questions with the understanding that we would run the entire questions and answers unedited.

So without further ado:

Kotaku
What do you think of Nintendo's newly announced strategy of Blue Oceans? (This is the strategy that says you don't need to be in a bloody competition to win and that Nintendo can take its own path to victory.)

CliffB
Nintendo has a legion of fans that love and respect everything they do. (I am in that fanbase; remember, my name IS in the first issue of Nintendo Power as well as a few old Fun Clubs for Mario high scores!) I quiver when I hear about a new next generation Mario game. There's always going to be a great place for a company with beloved intellectual properties who focuses on interesting new types of interactivity within those IPs.

Kotaku
What is the next big thing in gaming?

CliffB
Games like Half Life 2 started to really recognize and then realize the coolness that physics can bring to a game. Why do people love to watch football and car racing? Momentum, crashes, gravity, all of it.

Kotaku
Gears of War is certainly one of the most anticipated games for the 360, what gaming innovations do you expect it to bring to the next generation of gaming?

CliffB
I believe that "Gears of War" will be the first game to really establish the "Cover Shooter" as its own legitimate genre. In the past games such as Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid established the stealth genre.

Were those the first games to have stealth as a primary element? No, a game like "Thief" was the first title (that I know of) to really REQUIRE stealth but it was too far ahead of its time; ultimately it wound up being more of a cult hit. Games like MGS and Splinter took that idea, put it in a contemporary setting, marketed the hell out of it, and brought it to the mainstream and voila! - we have a new genre.

You can take a director like Darren Aronofsky who innovates with his style and camera work - all the way back to "Pi" and we now see these techniques (such as the chest mounted "vomit camera") in shlock like "World's Scariest Places". It's audience evolution and it takes time to happen.

Is Gears the first game to feature cover? No. But it's going to be the best implementation you've seen and it will be supported by a publisher who will know how to bring the idea to a legion of gamers who maybe...maybe are be a bit tired of running around deathmatching like chickens with their heads cut off. Gears is to the shooter genre as Tekken is to the fighting genre.

Kotaku
Do you have a favorite 360 title yet?

CliffB
It's a toss-up between "Condemned: Criminal Origins" and "Call of Duty 2." (Which, I suppose, is to be expected as "Gears" combines elements from both into a fresh gameplay experience.)

Kotaku
Do you think the 360's Xbox Live Arcade is going to have a significant impact on the independent game development scene?

CliffB
VERY much so; Live Arcade is one of the 360's features I'm extremely excited about not only as a gamer but as a developer. I want the indy guy to be able to have his work exposed to a broad audience! Besides, with the next generation of systems I ve found that there s a serious drought of 30 second fun games dirt simple shooters, puzzle games, etc How s about a physics based Jenga style game that you can play onscreen with proper physics? An update of Frogger or Asteroids only in HD with insanely hot graphics and stat tracking? Look, at first I know it sounds silly especially to a hardcore gamer - but these games are the gateway games for casual gamers to eventually evolve into playing a Grand Theft Auto, Splinter Cell, or Gears of War!

-B

Thanks Again to CliffyB for taking the time to answer those questions earlier this week.

Check out our full Xbox 360 coverage here or you can read my Rocky Mountain News review of the sytem here .

Major Nelson [Blog]

Slashdot played a game of "Ask Sid Meier," where they took questions from their readers and passed them along to the visionary game maker. Well, Meier's answers are in (just in time for the Oct. 25 release of Civilization IV). The Slashdot readers come up with some great questions, asking about playability versus graphics, the advantages and disadvantages of PC gaming and Meier's speculations on the future of gaming. It's a good read.

Sid Meier Responds [Slashdot]

Since we're not going to be seeing a new Evil Dead movie any time soon, good thing the cross-platform Evil Dead Regeneration for PS2, Xbox and Windows drops Sept. 20th.

Evil Dead Regeneration is not a sequel to any of the previous games, but to Evil Dead 2. The game picks up where the movie ends with Ash being arrested by the police, who blame him for murdering his friends. Ash is sentenced to an asylum, where a psychotic doctor tries to harness the Necronomicom (book of the dead) and releases a hoard of monsters. It's up to Ash to kick ass.

Back in July, our own Brian Crecente sat down with Bruce Campbell for a Q&A. Campbell had this to say:

What s weird about voicing a video game is you have to allow for what a gamer might do. So, what I recommend with any of the games I work on is go into a corner or go somewhere and keep clicking on something, keep doing something really stupid because eventually you will hear This is nothing there. You know, Step away from the window, or whatever. We record a lot of things most gamers would never hear.

I suck at video games so I let me son play. So he rated the first three Evil Dead games. The first one he said sucked, the second one was OK and the third one was good.

Bruce Q&A
New Evil Dead Too Short?

I can't see any reason to buy the Optimus keyboard, which is why it has suddenly catapulted to the top of the list of crap I absolutely need to own. (Right above digital binoculars and watches that do anything but tell time.)

The Optimus keyboard features tiny little OLED displays inside each key. So instead of having a letter or whatever printed on the keys, you can have the display show anything you want. While this could be very useful for people who need to switch between languages or makes heavy use of complicated software, it seems like unnecessary luxury for gamers. And, to reiterate, I must have it.

Primotech did a short Q&A with the Russian designers of this sweet keyboard. The interview puts to rest any fears that this thing may die on the design table. The board, which will work with any operating system, is expected out in about a year and will cost $200 to $300.

First Look: The Optimus Keyboard [Primo Tech]