I’m Gtalking live to my friend at GDC (he’s using his Blackberry), and as of 1:36 EST, it hasn’t started yet. Joshua says it’ll start in 5 minutes. Joshua works for Magmic, a developer of games for your cellphone, and he’s there in that capacity. Some of his games are quite popular, maybe you’d like to check them out.

Ooop! Started already.

I’ll just quote what Joshua says exactly. More fun that way! Here it is, my comments [in square brackets].

Blah blah we are better than everyone else. More marketshare and sales.

[PS2]

Talk about why God of War 2 for PS2 rather than PS3.
Clips look awesome.
Wow you will have to find that trailer.
They want to continue support for PS2 over next years.

[PSP]

Lower price for PSP tools. $5000.
Rss and flash browser in next PSP update.
Old news? Video and voice and GPS games for PSP.
Updates in Sept and oct 2006.
Games via network download including ps1 games via Sony service.

[PS3]

PS3 and PSP integrated via USB and wifi. [Hey, this is new, isn’t it?]
Apology for duck speech at E3.

Full backward compatible from day one – PS1 and PS2.
Full Blu-ray support.
[The Blackberry predictive text actually said “Full blue eat sippet” :)]
Full 1080i, HDMI.
HDD talk later.
16 companies at GDC making ps3 announcements.
Schedule for SDK on track for June.
Final hardware for dev by E3.

Nice rag doll demo real game prod code.
Wow. Hundreds of guys. Really good.
Showing off multiple pipeline stuff…
Procedural destruction of a lovely rendered car.
All demos in 1080i, by the way.

Blu-ray justification.. More everything including 1 disc for a global SKU. [One disc can have all language versions on it. Ship across the world.]
Tech demo of WarHawk.

Ambient warfare, procedural wave generation, volumetric clouds.. All true realtime in HD.
Another plug for Cell and RSX.
No low level opt. No assembly
Impressive

[PlayStation Network Playform]

Network platform: content communication, community and commerce are focuses.
Free basic service.
Available at launch worldwide.
Developed with Sony online entertainment.
3rd party game servers can be connected.
Shop for selling online content with APIs for in game.
Game launch from hdd without game disc??? [Sounds right.]
Server delivery schedule announced.
F1 game in dev!
Wowee! [Joshua and I are both big F1 fans.]
[Though I wonder why F1 is mentioned in this part of the presentation. Maybe just an example of online gameplay.]
Complete integration with network stuff like chats and email in game.
Game/shop integration quite nice. [They’re showing actual screens.]

[Games]

MotorStorm demo
[I asked: Is it realtime?]
His answer: Yes.
[I’d love to see that video!!!!]
Real game really innovative really cool.
Now we are viewing some pre captured stuff.
Much bigger demo coming at E3.

Demo of “Resistance Called Man”, a FPS. Nice.
[Joshua meant “Resistance: Fall of Man”]
Insomniac Games did it.

[PlayStation Network Playform, Part II]

Really want to focus on a network based gaming business rather than disc based.
I guess in concert with as well.. Episodic content downloads, etc. In game advertising as another revenue stream. [Doh! Well, if it keeps costs down.]
Launching e-distribution initiative
Playstation.com/beyond
Launched today [Website link for developers/distributors.]
That’s probably it. Sorry it was a bit unorganized.

[The End]

So we didn’t get a ton of new news, but we did get some. I’d really like to thank Joshua for providing this realtime update. He had to thumb it with his Blackberry, so thanks, Joshua!

Now I need to find all that material online somewhere. I’d love to see screenshots of the online stuff, and of course the game demo videos.

[Edit:

Of course, since Joshua was using his Blackberry, he couldn’t type everything in. Here are some additions and clarifications from Joystiq
and EuroGamer:

• Yup, 1080p support was there.
• The showed procedurally generated video of fish swimming in the water. (Ooooh!)
• PS3 production capacity will ramp up faster than PS/PS2. 1m units/month.
• PlayStation Network Platform is an internal name, not the consumer name
• “Images from Formula one game. More @ E3. Video chat overlayed over the game from the side. Multiple video chats open at once. Presence is overlayed inside the game. All come from inside teh operating system. Email/friends lists all accessible inside the game. Messages can be controlled (intrusive or not). “Shop” front end bought inside the game. Motor Storm “Shop” front end matches the graphical style of that product. ‘Seamless’ “
• “Insomniac Games Ted Price takes the stage. Internal demo completed a few months ago for a game formerly known as i8, now resistance: Fall of Man. FPS. Primarly running on teh GPU, but starting to be moved over to the SPUs. Every system they move over, they can do more per frame. Blackhole gun is pretty cool. Still can’t take pictures! They’re working on the PS3. Insomniac is independant. PS3 has superior firepower. Blu-ray and the SPUs. Everything in teh next-gen is more spatially expensive; developers need more room. Blu-ray is a “huge win for developers.” Worldwide disc with all the languages present.”
• “Cell has 7 SPUs. Physics, collation, bot navigation, AI, can all be moved onto the SPUs. The challenge comes in load-balancing. Parallel processing on a level that we’ve never seen before combined with a storage medium that satisifes the insatiable demand for more storage. “
• “Singstar’s next on the agenda, and finally there’s talk of downloadable tracks via the Internet; also customisable backdrops, the ability to store videos and photos within Singstar and share with the community – it’s all about turning Singstar PS3 into ‘a next generation experience’.”

]