With the demise of E3, the Game Developer Conference is poised to become the top video game convention in North America, which is a good thing and a bad thing. It's good because GDC already puts on a great show, and getting more developers and publishers to participate will only make it better. But it could be bad if GDC grows to the point of becoming an unwieldy, out of control behemoth that everyone dreads attending.

Luckily, GDC found a happy medium this year. The show itself didn't change much at all; the conference still featured some excellent educational sessions and highly informative panels with some of the biggest names in game development. There were a lot more E3-like parties, social gatherings and media events off site at various hotels, but the core of GDC remained the same, which is a good thing. And while there weren't many big announcements at the show outside of Sony's PlayStation Home, there were plenty of other informative points, fascinating trends, and outrageous statements - courtesy of Maxis' Chris Hecker - that helped to show where gaming is going in the next year or two.

View Slide Show (11 images)

Sony And Nintendo: Reversal Of Fortune?

The story of GDC 2007 was Sony, in my humbled opinion. I've already written about how the company staged a mini-comeback last Wednesday with its surprising keynote, which included the PlayStation Home announcement and a buzz-worthy demo of a loveable new indie game called LittleBigPlanet. But it's worth mentioning again, if only to contrast Sony's performance at the show to Nintendo's.

Looking at the event schedule before the show began, most people probably figured Nintendo was poised to hit another home run. The company is still riding an immense wave of Wii buzz, with a rich foam of nostalgia, and it was breaking out the big guns at GDC last week, namely Shigeru Miyamoto. The famed game developer had a massive crowd of GDC attendees lined up around the Moscone Convention Center on Thursday. And despite starting 30 minutes later and not delivering any other big news or brilliant developments other than Super Mario Galaxy's release date (sometime in 2007), Miyamoto still received a standing ovation from the audience of game developers.

But let's dispense with the admiration of Miyamoto for a second and focus on Nintendo. While Miyamoto's discussion of Nintendo's strategy to make universally appealing games was somewhat interesting, the talk of the "wife-o-meter" was not what I had in mind. I expected Nintendo to have some new developments for the Wii platform, such as novel applications for the motion sensor controls, and maybe some additional Wii Channels or even some updates for potential online play (remember online play, Nintendo?). We got none of that.

Worse, the new console's Miis look positively ancient compared to the new PlayStation Home that Sony debuted yesterday. And perhaps worst of all, the library of Wii games coming this year doesn't look all that impressive outside Super Mario Galaxy (Metroid has apparently been pushed off again). There are some third party titles that could be exciting, such as Ubisoft's Prince of Persia: Rival Swords and Rockstar's Manhunt 2, but the Wii's early track record with third party titles has been shaky at best. Is Sony really on the comeback trail? Is Nintendo and the Wii losing its lustre? Time will tell. But if the GDC proved anything this year, it's how quickly things can change in the video game industry.

Maxis Developer: The Wii Is A Piece Of Sh*t!

While I thought Nintendo's keynote lacked excitement, I wouldn't go quite as far as Maxis designer Chris Hecker, who during a GDC panel last week called the Wii a "piece of sh*t." How nice. Hecker then proceeded to heckle Nintendo further by saying the Wii was just a severely underpowered console that consisted of two GameCube's sandwiched together. Worse, he said he wasn't sure Nintendo "gives a sh*t about games as an art form." Wow.

View Slide Show (11 images)

After Hecker's statements made headlines and Maxis and parent company EA caught flack for them, Hecker then set the new world record for backpedaling speed with this apology (from Kotaku): "I don't know who has read the internet, yesterday. In a [unintelligible] panel I said a bunch of things. I was trying to be thought provoking and entertaining and fun and a lot of the stuff went too far over the top - on the entertaining and fun side, so that it was no longer thought provoking, just inflammatory. And in the process I hurt a bunch of people I care about. And so, I want to apologize now.

"When I'm on stage, I'm me. I'm talking talk from me. From me. I'm not representing EA or Maxis. I do not think the Wii is a piece of shit. Nintendo needs to be applauded for trying to interface on the controller front, the user interface front, on making games accessible, on making a console that you don't need to mortgage your house to afford."

Now here's the thing about Hecker's apology. It's a nice gesture, but I don't buy it one bit. Why? First, you don't unleash a rant that vicious unless you mean some of it. Second, Hecker makes it sound like he didn't know his comments were going to erupt in a media frenzy, which is laughable - he was an editor-at-large at Game Developer Magazine not too long ago. And third, he should know that when he takes the stage at a major event, he IS representing his employers whether he likes it or not.

Join our discussion on this topic