GDC '09: XBox 360 Gets Little, PS3 Gets MGS & Ratchet Games

217w ago - The Game Developers Conference is winding down and all has not been lost as several new games have been announced. The conference for the most part was made up of sessions where developers shared new insight into best practices into game development.

Surprisingly Microsoft's camp stayed fairly quiet, while Sony's side was making a bit of ruckus with a tease of a Metal Gear game from Kojima and a new Ratchet & Clank announcement.

Hideo Kojima, the genius behind the Metal Gear games was the keynote speaker at the GDC. Kojima was presented with the lifetime award from GDC, which is the prestigious award honoring those who have made significant contributions to the game industry. Let's face it, not too many individuals can actually take credit for creating a genre.

Kojima wanted to share his 20 some plus years of experience in the game industry by describing his journey as a game developer. He also shared his development methodology as well as shed some light on future ideas. The keynote speech ended with a stunning statement - Mission: The Next MGS.

Next to the caption there was a small picture of Raiden. As I speculated yesterday, this could mean that Kojima may make a new iteration or spin-off with Raiden as the main character.

Another new game that was revealed was the next installment in the Ratchet & Clank franchise. Frankly, I am extremely anxious to play the next installment in the series. Questions such as what happens to Clank has been keeping me on edge for sometime. I am also looking forward to seeing the silly Captain Qwark, who is always trying to play the hero while messing things up again.

I was surprised that Microsoft didn't make much noise during GDC. The Twitter for the Official Xbox Magazine indicated that some cool stuff would be shown day 2 of GDC. However, nothing was really shown during the conference from Microsoft's side.

Let me be clear here, just because nothing new was shown at GDC for the Xbox 360 doesn't mean that there isn't anything in the pipeline. I can only assume that the secret good stuff will be saved for E3 later this year.

I am looking forward to at least checking out some Alan Wake gameplay. Gamers can now mark their calendars for E3 which takes place in two full months.