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The Daily GameDev.Net

Posted by: Tiffany Leigh Smith at April 1, 2009 10:04:42 PM

Here is your post GDC Wednesday daily. My brain is still buzzing from all the information gleaned at the Game Developers Conference 2009. If you haven't had chance to check out our coverage yet, you can find it here. Please remember to keep checking back, as more coverage is being added throughout the week.

As quickly as Sony announced a price cut to the PlayStation 2, making the system available for $99.99 as opposed to its previous $129.99. Microsoft jumped in and dismissed the move as a non-threat. "This move from Sony at the end of the PS2’s life cycle is not unexpected," Chris Lewis, VP of the Interactive Entertainment Business for Microsoft, tells GamesIndustry.biz. "We believe, however, that the future lies in the growth of current generation consoles and Xbox 360, as the fastest growing games console last year, with sales up over 80 per cent, will continue to drive the market." According to EEDAR, the price cut of the PlayStation 2 will initially boost sales and lessen the platform's long-term declining market share. The research firm reports that PS2 titles accounted for 21 per cent of all home console software sales in the last quarter of 2008, and 19 per cent in the first quarter of 2009. EEDAR also says it still expects a price cut on the PlayStation 3 to come at some point this year.

UBM, the company which owns the GDC, has reportedly threatened to sue the LOGIN event over a partnership with the Howell Expo the company behind the China GDC conference. According to GIBiz, the row has developed because UBM owns the copyright to the GDC brand, and Think Services is putting on an event of its own later in the year, while the China GDC conference is taking place in the same location at the end of July. The news is that event organiser Peter Freese claims that he was forced to pull out of a partnership with Howell Expo because of legal pressure applied by UBM. "We're not happy about doing this, but we feel our highest priority is to provide a quality event to our attendees," explained Freese. Confused yet? To make matters even more confusing, Howell Expo claim that it has partnered with IGDA, the developer body that's had a "long and positive history" with Think Services as well as an existing alliance. "The Organization Committee of CGDC has recently reached a comprehensive cooperation with International Game Developers Association in convention promotion and audience invitation," said the CGDC website.

It looks like Sony may enter into cloud computing, the operation of services from a remote server. Gamesindustry.biz says that Sonys Japanese office filed the patent for 'PS Cloud' on March 24, a day after the GDC debut of OnLive, the online game streaming service. The filing looks to unveil early plans to make the service available to handheld game devices as well as consoles and details PS Cloud as providing "entertainment services, namely, providing an online videogame that users may access through the internet". PS Cloud could also offer streaming music as well as electronic books and magazines according to the source.

Notable Headlines of Singular Goodness

EA Releases PC DRM Management Tool
AIAS Offers Gaming Scholarship
Microsoft in talks with game publishers for mobile marketplace

Today for a vid link I wanted to share this video that Cave Story fan and talented artist, Annabelle Kennedy, put together for Cave Story Wii. Annabelle used Kontakt Symphobia and Vocaloids to bring her own lyrics to life with clips from the original Cave Story for PC.