Most of you remember me as one of the architects of Java 3D. Well, I am now the
chief architect for this newly formed game technologies group. I can ensure you
that we will be helping out the small independent game developers a lot. A couple
more announcements next week will show this. Also, look at the Video Game Summit
that we are putting on next week. Most of the desktop games are all being done by
independents. We very much know that moving into a new market with a technology
requires that you embrace and help out all independent and grass roots efforts.
We look forward to working with all of you game developers. I will be around all week
next week, so stop by and say hello.
Doug Twilleager
Chief Architect Java Game Technologies
Sun Microsystems
John Wright wrote:
Dave,
Fascinating and great news.
I'd like to hear what Sun plans to do for those of us that have been
"slogging along in the trenches" for years to bring out Java MMORPG
games. Or does this mean that Sun will neglect us small developers and
help the big guys (Sony) out even further?
(Pernica is back to being plagued by an intermittent memory leak... I
can't fix it when I can't reliably reproduce it.)
- John Wright
Starfire Research
"Yazel, David J." wrote:For those of you that missed it...
Sun Microsystems (Quote, Company Info) Wednesday set its crosshairs on the
multi-million dollar gaming industry with the formal establishment of the
Sun Game Technologies Group.
The Santa Clara, Calif.-based network computer maker said Chris Melissinos
has been tapped to play the part of Chief Gaming Officer and to oversee
Sun's efforts to coach online gaming companies on huge swings in demand
computing and client/server issues. Melissinos says Sun is well equipped for
the task.
"I like to think that the biggest Massive multiplayer game is Wall Street
because you have millions of connections from millions of people with all of
the reliability and scalability," Melissinos told internetnews.com. "We have
been working in this space for close to 20 years and that is why we can
approach this with great success in building a high performance
transactional environment."
The Massive Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) marketplace has been gaining lots
of momentum and creating its own buzz. Redwood City, Calif.-based MMOG
network developer Zona, estimates the number of dollars spent on MMOG
subscriptions will jump to USD$2.7 billion by 2006.
Sun has been quietly involved in the gaming industry for the past two years
having participated in the Game Developer Conference and E3 as well as
hosted the javagaming.org, a discussion forum where developers can discuss
and share ideas on Java technology in the industry.
The "Law and Order" series of online games as well as "Vampire of the
Masquerade" by Activision, the "You Don't Know Jack" series and various
flight simulator games.
To that end, Sun said it has also been working behind the scenes with key
players like Electronic Arts (EA) (Quote, Company Info), Sony (Quote,
Company Info) and BioWare to figure out what companies involved in massive,
online , multi-player gaming need to run simultaneous environments.
"We are also focusing on a secondary tier and building the deeper logic to
run these complex environments," Melissinos said. "When you look at how
systems are set up now, there is a lot of waste because the gaming community
generally uses one server for one game. We intend to bring a solution set to
build a first game on a system and then use it for a second set of games
without tearing the whole thing down."
Next week at the JavaOne Conference in San Francisco, Sun is hosting a Video
Game Summit. The three-day event offers case studies, developer insight,
game demos and techniques highlighting the use of Java technology in modern
game development.
Sun said the plan is also to extend Java and its Solaris server technology
to game players and developers on the millions of network connected
desktops, consoles and mobile devices emerging as gaming platforms.
"It 's not about getting an EverQuest game on a cell phone, but more like
what about those games can you put on that device," Melissinos said.
For example, Melissinos says one of the aspects of Sony's Grand Turismo
racing game is tweaking a racer in the shop. With Sun's way of doing things,
Melissinos says changing either the profile or other aspects of the vehicle
could be done on a different form factor like a PDA or even a smartphone.
While Melissinos stopped short of saying the company would produce its own
standalone gaming console like PS2, he did say that it won't be too long
that other networked gaming devices would sport a Java-compatible sticker.
Except, he says, don't count on the Xbox showing of a Java sticker any time
soon
http://siliconvalley.internet.com/news/article.php/2216881
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