Game Developer Research just put out their “2008 State Of Game Development Survey.” Pretty interesting data on game developers here.

What are they working on?

• 70% respondents are making computer games (PC, Mac)
• 43% are console game developers
• 28% are web game developers
• 16% developing games for handhelds (DS, PSP)

Console Developers (some overlap)

• 73% developing Xbox 360 games
• 58% developing PlayStation 3 games
• 42% developing Wii games
• 15% developing PlayStation 2 games (still?)

DS/PSP

• 75% developing for DS
• 45% developing for PSP

On the same day that Apple announces their upcoming ‘a little more portable’ notebook (can’t call it a UMPC at 13 inches), Microsoft released their much anticipated press release on the changes coming to the Zune. Caution AppleInsider employs some nasty pop-ups, so keep that in mind if you visit that Apple link above.

What cracks me up is the way the Microsoft press release reads. It actually says,

“We’re bringing the entire category to the next level by empowering consumers to play a role in redefining the digital music experience.”

This is a quote by J Allard, VP for Zune talking about their aesthetic customization options. Yes, you are really ‘redefining the digital music experience’ because we can place laser engravings of tats on our Zunes. Steve Jobs is likely shaking in his loafers. A real iPod killer…

I won’t bore you with the details of Microsoft’s press release when you can read it yourself, but I will say the coolest thing, in my opin, is the wireless sync option.

Wireless sync. Consumers can set their Zune to automatically sync to their PC collection via a home wireless network whenever it’s placed in its dock or plugged in to charge, making it easy to keep the Zune updated with the latest music or podcasts. Consumers can also manually start a wireless sync from their device as soon as they are within range of their wireless network.

The Vista/Media Center TV show sync was interesting. This one almost sounded awesome, as I record a huge amount of CSIs and Law and Orders on my Media Center:

Recorded television content to go. The Zune software will now import broadcast content recorded on Microsoft Windows Media Center for Windows Vista Home Premium or Windows Vista Ultimate, so consumers can sync it to their Zune.

However, I am not willing to put Vista on my Media Center, as I have had two machines so far with Vista and both have had to be wiped. It’s going to need to become more stable before I waste anymore time on it.

Other than that, nothing earth-shattering. They still have no Mac support, so I’m going to jump ship to the iPod.

Update: Yahoo! Tech has a good review, but why won’t they let you comment with your url? If I wanted to link to my Yahoo! profile I would have

I’ve not gotten a subscription to GameTap because we already have far too many gaming choices at home that I can play easily with a controller. I’m not a fan of keyboard-controlled games (gasp) and I haven’t taken the time to make my television easily linked with a computer, until now.

When we moved, my husband sneakily purchased an HDTV (one of my first days in the office) and took my gaming laptop and joined it (via MediaCenter) to this shiny new TV. I came home from work and in a day he had transformed our box-filled living room into a full-fledged media room, which is amazing since the codecs for MediaCenter are notoriously still tricky deal with and the fact that he did this feat in a few hours is mindboggling. If you haven’t set up a MediaCenter, or played with Vista either, then you don’t understand, but if you’ve even attempted this, then you know how long this takes, if you are ever even successful. When I installed the Vista beta last fall, I had no sound for months (explains the LONG time between podcasts and vidcasts, doesn’t it… I blame it all on Microsoft LOL).

Anyway, it was this MediaCenter/HDTV that made me want to give GameTap another look. I finally have a reason to hook my controller up to this TV. I mean, I can probably do it easily using the XBox Extender service.

But, I probably would have still taken months to get around to doing this, if I hadn’t read today on ArsTechnica that GameTap is going the ad-supported model and making their service free.

While GameTap will still offer subscriptions, GameTap.com will expand from its current role as a portal to the GameTap client and will offer big-name classic games to play for free, all supported by the ads displayed on the page. The new site will launch on May 31 and will feature 30 games to begin, including titles like Metal Slug, Joust, and Rampage. These are titles that are being sold for premium prices on other consoles, so they may be able to draw the high number of people required to make this strategy profitable.

There literally is no barrier to playing now. As a marketing hack I always get excited when I see advertising used in creative and relatively new ways, but the cheap geek in me has always dreamed of a day when all games will cease to be $60 a pop and will be liberally sprinkled with ads and in-game placement ala most movies. Has that day finally come? Well, not really, but still I can go and play Metal Slug and Joust, and soon Laura Croft: Anniversary.

The service doesn’t open up until the end of the month, and it will be competing with the much anticipated Halo 3 beta (May 11-June 9), but I’m sure I’ll still find some time to Joust my heart away for free. Of course, that doesn’t even begin to imagine the fun we could have on GameTap, one-the-go, with a UMPC. Gosh, just thinking about it gives me goose bumps!

I found these while perusing some friend’s sites. Here’s two pics of me from GDC. I didn’t really know where to post them so here they are. The first is from Eneloop’s Myspace page (rechargable batteries from Sanyo). Nikki is a friend and she was kind enough to interview me at GDC. She also gave me two packs of the batteries, so I’m in her debt.

The next one is from Josh Bancroft over at TinyScreenfuls. He’s an A-lister so I’ll be sure to name drop him here more often to prove I have friends in high places.

Back in February I wrote a review on my new Zune, which I am still enjoying, mostly due to the FM radio, I might add, but I wanted to spend a little time on the app I am using to pull down my video and audio feeds.

I had an iPod before, and will preface this review by noting that the first annoyance I had was that the software wasn’t as 1-step easy as the iTunes software, but that is the price you pay for a more open player I suppose. More on that when I discuss the sync process in a moment, but I will say this is the only problem I had with the software, and I was promised that later versions will answer this issue.

Download and Setup:
The first step to using the software is to download it from feedyourzune.com. The process is painless and once installed, the program loads with a handful of sample channels and your fireant feed. These samples are easily deleted, thanks to a recent requested addition (so I’ve seen on a few message board rants).

The service allows you to add feeds seperately, or to add shows directly from your fireant account. If you choose the former, a simple copy/paste of the RSS feed is required, much like adding show feeds in iTunes. If you choose the latter, you must first open a fireant account and the management of that account is online at fireant.tv. The process herein is even easier, providing the show that you want to watch is one of those listed at fireant. Adding a show is a simple one-click event, and the resulting feed in your FeedYourZune software includes all the shows that you are currently subscribed to download.

Because I watch/listen to a variety of shows, some are not listed at Fireant, so my software contains both the fireant feed and a dozen or so other individual show feeds. You can see a few of them above.

Syncing Your Zune:
The major issue I had with the software was the sync process. Again, I will say that this is to be fixed in a soon-to-be-released revision. From Josh at FeedYourZune:

Currently, FeedYourZune adds all downloads to the Zune software, which you can then use to sync to your Zune device.

For a future release of FeedYourZune, we are working on direct connection to the Zune device and transcoding media files to ensure they will be able to play on your Zune.

Currently though, the way it works is that the FYZ software refreshes the individual feeds everytime you open the software. Then, you have the option of downloading whichever episodes tickle your fancy, and then you have to open the Zune software and sync from there. Not painless, but worth the trouble to avoid iTunes, in my opinion.

Monetization:
It apppears to me that the software is monetized by the Zune accessory advertising in the far left corner. Some, I’m sure, will complain about that, but for me, that was not something that I minded. In fact, I rather enjoyed seeing the accessories as they are in short supply locally.

I’m sure there are more items to cover, but for me the whole process was a breeze. As I said, I have read a variety of annoyed message board posts, so I think the early version of this software was probably much more ‘beta’ than even this ‘preview release’, but all in all I liked the software enough to make it my primary means of video/audio feed delivery.