The Game Developers Conference or GDC, started today in San Francisco, and promises to be a highly interesting affair for the gaming community - both developers and players. Secrets will be shared, announcements will be made, technology and development will be demonstrated, summits will be held, tutorial will help budding designers, and industry veterans will take part in intriguing panel discussions, all contributing to the entire field of gaming, everything from programming to audio, business practices to game design, production to visual arts. Some of the most exciting summits at the GDC 2010 include: iPhone Games (yes, a whole session dedicated to the iPhone as a platform, exclusive of other mobile devices), Mobile/Handheld, AI, Serious Games, Independent Games, and Social &...

Microsoft’s Eric Rudder showcased his company’s “Live Anywhere” concept at TechEd Middle East, with a quick demo of a game that can be played across Microsoft platforms with different input devices, from a Windows Phone 7 series prototype device (using an accelerometer and touch screen), to a Windows PC (using a keyboard), and an Xbox 360 (using a controller). Microsoft claims the game’s Visual Studio coding, no matter which platform it is for, is essentially the same – 90% of it is identical, and just 10% is platform specific. The synchronicity possible between the platforms is what makes the entire concept immensely more appealing – allowing you to play on any platform, and to resume exactly where you left off even if you switch to another,...

Nvidia released a video yesterday showing a benchmarking test between the GeForce GTX 480 (the new DX11 GPU based on the revolutionary Fermi architecture) and the ATI Radeon HD 5870 (ATI's flagship single GPU DX 11 card). While you would expect the GTX 480's almost 1 billion more transistors (3 billion compared to 2.15 billion) to give it a distinct advantage over the HD 5870, the Fermi flagship is not as spectacularly ahead as we thought it would be. However, the Unigine Heaven benchmark is probably not the best grounds for comparison, and stresses the 480's tesselation performance over the...