Liveblogging the Microsoft GDC keynote

Just got in to the Microsoft keynote and I walked in the same tim as Reggie Fils-Aime. Nothing to report yet other than the photo. Check back for updates in a few minutes.

This morning 1,000,000,000 (one billion) Xbox Live achievements have been unlocked. Over $250 millions spent on online content.

@10:40 – Video montage of developers talking about the benefit of using the Xbox 360 dev kits. Rock Band, Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Halo 3 are some of the featured devs.

@10:46 – Poker Smash made by three people in a "living room."

@10:47 – XNA architect Chris Satchell takes the stage. Over 800,000 downloads of XNA Studio, adopted by 400 universities.

@10:50 – Dream, Build, Play like the American Idol of video games. Video of James Silva the developer of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.

@10:55 – Co op play of the game, 2D cartoon like story panels.

@10:55 – Xbox Live Community Games announcement! Democratizing game distribution. Create, submit, peer review, play. Can't have "massively objectable" content or copyrighted IPs.

@11:00 – Measure content. Violence meter. Jellycar shown. Says limited time demo 17 days underneath. Tonka toys meets jellow. Chainsaw + Zombies, beer + shotguns in Little Gamers. Looks like a flash game. Rocket launcher zombie shooting.

Proximity HD, numeric puzzle game on a hexagon board. Culture, a game with flowers on a sphere. Rocketball like dodge ball on a street. These community games will be on Xbox Live Marketplace after the keynote.
@11:05 – XNA games can be built for Zune. A space shmup up was shown. You can mix custom soundtracks from stored music. Hexic was on the games playlist with something else called Marbles.

@11:06 – Dr. Michael Capps from Epic takes the stage. Shows a video with games running the Unreal Engine. Bioshock, Lost Odyssey, Mass Effect and Gears of War highlighted.

@11:08 – Gears of War shown side by side with updated engine.
Video with hundreds of Locus Horde soldiers running on screen. Water ripple effects, pretty splashes when objects hit the water. More realistic destructable environments. Objects break depending on what it's made of.

@11:13 – Over 1,000 games by the end of 2008 not including community games. GTA IV downloadble episodes come out in the fall. Itagaki from Team Ninja takes the stage to show Ninja Gaiden II.

@11:18 – Responds to comments on stagnation of the Japanese game community with Ninja Gaiden II. New area never shown before. Ninja Cinema option spotted in the menu. The Temple of Sacrifice. Dark area with bone trees and lots of creatures flying around. Fighting giant creatures with chainsaw arms. Ryu uses fire ninpo to finish one of them off. Save point with a video recording trigger. Ninja Cinema videos can be uploaded so people can watch them. Fire breathing demons killed with the tonfa. Giant demon tells Ryu to submit or die at the end. Slated for early June for the world. June 3 for North America.

@11:28 – Fable 2 live demo from Peter Molyneux. You get money by gambling at pub games. Keystone, a cross between craps and roulette. This is an Xbox Live Arcade game outside of Fable 2. Plans to releasing the Xbox Live Arcade game a few weeks before Fable 2. Fable 2 shown with a woman protaganist. Female characters can be come pregnant. "No labor minigame." Co-op play in Fable 2. At anytime a friend can log in with their character from their world. All co-op experience from teleported players and gold transfers back to a the other player's world. Ends with co-op player killing the husband. The death is permanent.

@11:40 – Cliffy B. "Gears of War was a setup." Gears of War 2 exclusively for the Xbox 360 in Nov. 2008.