At GDC Microsoft took an angle with their presentation that puts focus back on gaming on PC and Xbox. To that end Microsoft are bringing two of their key console ventures to Windows 10.

The first is the ID@Xbox program, a way for independent game developers and studios to produce and self-publish their games for the Xbox consoles. Now Microsoft are expanding it across to PC to help the same developers bring their new games to PC easier than before.

The second is the Xbox Live SDK which is going to be updated to account for development on Windows 10, part of Microsoft’s recent push to make universal apps that work across Windows computer, consoles and smart devices.

This is on top of the fact that all Xbox accessories going forward will be made compatible with Windows 10 as well as a wireless adaptor for the Xbox One controller being released.

Well it was a fun 12 years, but it's time to turn off the lights and put the key under the door. #RIPMaxisEmeryville

— Guillaume Pierre (@MaxisGuillaume) March 4, 2015

With those 117 characters, SimCity lead gameplay scripter and designer Guillaume Pierre revealed the sad news that Electronic Arts has closed down SimCity studio Maxis Emeryville. After 12 long years, the company have apparently decided to close the studio in order to consolidate Maxis IPs into existing Maxis studios.

EA confirmed the closure and intentions with the following statement:

Today we are consolidating Maxis IP development to our studios in Redwood Shores, Salt Lake City, Helsinki and Melbourne locations as we close our Emeryville location. Maxis continues to support and develop new experiences for current Sims and SimCity players, while expanding our franchises to new platforms and developing new cross-platform IP.

 

These changes do not impact our plans for The Sims. Players will continue to see rich new experiences in The Sims 4, with our first expansion pack coming soon along with a full slate of additional updates and content in the pipeline.

Although Pierre had additionally tweeted “everyone’s out of a job” in reference to the studio’s employees, EA included a further paragraph in their statement in regards to the affected employees:

All employees impacted by the changes today will be given opportunities to explore other positions within the Maxis studios and throughout EA. For those that are leaving the company, we are working to ensure the best possible transition with separation packages and career assistance.

At this time, it’s unknown how many employees will be affected by the closure.

Maxis was founded by Will Wright and Jeff Braun in 1987, and was acquired by EA in 1997. The studios are well-known for their town-building and life-sim franchises, SimCity and The Sims respectively; but following the adoption of a new engine in their latest title, Sims 4, causing a large loss of content from that found in previous games; and a disastrous attempt to revive the SimCity franchise in 2013 as an online game which was plagued by numerous technical and design flaws as well as server instabilities, Maxis’ future under EA has found itself on an unfortunate downward spiral.

This is the Third (and final) installment of the Five Nights at Freddys trilogy. This game is set 30 years after the first game. The Freddy Fazbear Pizza incidents are a distant yet horrifying memory. A man decides to make a horror house themed around the dead pizza place. They try to find authentic Freddy Fazbear pizza items. They found a few masks here, a few pictures there, some voice recordings. Until they suddenly found one -An animatronic that looks like a golden Bonnie. Thats where things start going down hill. It’s not even turned on and yet it’s… moving… and there are other things bumping around and the systems are all going screwy.

The gameplay is vastly different from the other two games while also keeping some things. Scott Cawthon listens to all of our complaints on how we can’t pay attention of the cameras so he makes the game fully about the camera system while also adding a few other things. You have to pay attention to 3 different systems Video (which is the one thing he keeps throughout the games), Audio which is the only thing to protect you from the animatronic (it distracts him), and Ventilation, if the Ventilation goes down you start to black out and hallucinate. This game only has one Animatronic but it’s not the only thing you need to worry about. Other animatronics which are now hallucinations are back (Foxy, Chica, Freddy, and Ballon Boy (there are more but you go have fun finding them). The only way to avoid them is to ignore them which means switching cameras fast. This makes the game quite stressful because if you stare at them for to long then you get attacked forcing some of your 3 systems to go down. But if you ignore them then you might miss seeing where our Bunny Friend (named Spring Trap) is and that’s not quite a good thing. This does make the game more suspensful because if any of those things go down it takes time for you to reboot them back up and with multiple systems being down it takes all the more time being away from the camera. But if you go back to the camera you might get attacked by an halusination and if that happens more systems go down which takes longer to defend yourself and if… well I think I made my point. Theres not much to the story sadly, though it does give you some closure explaining to you on what happened to the animatronics and what happened to the murderer. I won’t say anymore then that.  If I had to give this game a score out of 10 it would be a 6.5/10. The gameplay has vastly been improved and it’s quite scary and suspensful. Sadly since I’m a story whore this lost alot of points for me. Anyway this is Nekokitwolf sayyyyinggggggggggggggggg caio.

Nvidia announced another addition to the Shield lineup last night, debuting an Android-based device capable of 4k playback and capture. The device is intended to be used in the living room, and Nvidia cited a number of reasons for using the Android OS.

“First, it’s based on the most popular OS in the world. Second, the richness of the Google Play store, with it huge range of applications,” Nvidia CEO Jen-Hsun Huang said. “Third, it syncs with all my other devices. Finally, it has an incredible voice search capability.”

He then went on to demonstrate video playback, voice capture and a variety of other features. The unit will featuure a very simple remote that can also act as a bluetooth reciever, as well as having touch sensitive volume controls. Android TV functionality is baked in, and users will be able to access a library of TV, movies and more.

Of course, Nvidia is primarily a gaming company, and games were well represented during the presentation. Current games being ported over include Portal, Crysis 3, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, The Witcher 3, Metal Gear Rising: Revengence, The Talos Principle and more. A common theme of the gaming side of the presentation was the ease of getting these games up and running on the system with little difficulty and no loss of features.

The box will pack a Tegra X1 processor with a 256-bit Maxwell GPU and 3GB of memory. On the external side, it has a MicroSD slot, Micro USB 2.0 port, gigabit Ethernet port, HDMI port and two USB Type-A 3.0 ports. Its an impressive bit of kit, and Nvidia is promising that it will ship bundled with the Shield Controller for $199 (USD)

The VR headset that Sony revealed last year, Project Morpheus has been given a release time. Sony are aiming to release Morpheus in 2016.

At GDC Sony revealed that they are hoping to get its VR headset out into the market in the first half of the next year, showing off their latest prototype and details on its specifications.

Morpheus will feature a 5.7 inch, 1920×1080 RGC OLED display with a refresh rate of 120hz, and what Sony promises will be “super low latency”. It will also have a 100-degree field of view and the last prototype’s three LEDs for positional tracking has been upped to nine to improve the accuracy. The overall design has also been tweaked to allow users to equip and take off.

Sony Worldwide Studios president Shuhei Yoshida spoke to the crowd about the device saying that the reason so little had been heard of it since GDC last year was down to the fact that they were using both consumer and developer feedback to modify and improve the device. There have already been some tests with some tech demos such as with diving simulator The Deep.