Of all the different motion controllers on the market Microsoft Xbox 360 Kinect is arguably the most technol0gically advanced. If you’re not familiar with this device it is basically a 3D camera allowing the gamer to use their whole body as the controller. This is quite different than Nintendo’s idea with the Wii (and later Sony with the PlayStation Move) where you actually need a physical controller in your hand.

While the games currently offered for Kinect are quite innovative, the homebrew software created by hackers for the PC that utilize the Kinect is far more innovative than anything currently available on the market. Unfortunately, to actually develop for the Kinect you need to use some unauthorized methods. Luckily, Microsoft has said in the past that htey will be releasing an official PC SDK for the Kinect that would allow developers to official create software using the technology.

Even better, it was just made known today that Microsoft is looking to release the Kinect for Windows SDK this Spring meaning it will be coming quite soon. This is great news for the homebrew community who have already been developing for the Kinect as it will give them a chance to legitimize their software.

via joystiq

It seems that l4dmods recently got their hands on some juicy information that lets us know what the Left 4 Dead 2 SDK holds for us namely; custom models.

Now, this isn’t confirmed but if the below excerpt from the SDK’s addoninfo.txt is to be believed, developers will get a chance to include custom survivor, special infected, common infected and weapon models in addition to being able to actually customize a weapons functionality. Check it out for yourself:

addonContent_BackgroundMovie 0 //Provides a replacement for the background movie.
addonContent_Survivor 0 //Provides a new survivor model. 0=false, 1=true, String in quotes if replaces specific single character, i.e. “Francis”
addonContent_BossInfected 0 //Provides a new boss infected model. Break these out?
addonContent_CommonInfected 0 //Provides a new common infected model
addonContent_WeaponModel 0 //Provides a new appearance to existing weapons, but does not change their function
addonContent_weapon 0 //provides new weapons or new zombie killing functionality, i.e. guns, explosives, booby traps, hot tar,
addonContent_Skin 0 //0 if no new skin textures for existing models. 1 if multiple skin pack. String in quotes if specific single skin
addonContent_Spray 0 //Provides new sprays.
addonContent_Map 0 //Add-on provides a standalone map

We’ll have to wait until either Valve speaks on the new SDK or it actually comes out before writing this one off as confirmed

Naughty Dog is looking to really further the Playstation 3′s development, recently announcing that they will make the entire source code for Uncharted available to all of Sony’s first-party developers.

Evan Wells, co-president of Naughty Dog, said the following:

“We’re very fortunate to have a great group of first party developers within Sony that we’re able to collaborate with. We’re frequently exchanging technical ideas and even share some code from time to time. We’ve even posted the entire source code of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune to Sony’s internal severs so that any first party developer can look through it, or borrow from it and we plan on doing the same thing when Uncharted 2 ships.”

Let’s hope that Naughty Dog’s contribution to the community will help other game developers get their games on par, at least graphically, with Uncharted.

Read (GameZine)

Crysis wasn’t exactly known for its modding prowess, but Crytek hopes Crysis Warhead will be, as the studio announced that the tools needed to make modifications or new levels for the game will be released soon.

"As most of you will already be aware we have not included our Sandbox Editor or MOD SDK with the disc for Crysis Warhead or Crysis Wars," reads a post from a Crytek community manager.

He writers further, stating that the studio focused on delivering the gameplay experience and to get both single and multiplayer modes perfect. However, they are now working on the editor and SDK solution for the recently-released semi-sequel, adding that it will be released “as soon as it is complete and available.”