Alone in the Dark, Atari's final massive, mainstream videogame project 4 years in the making, will be releasing in less than a month, we're told from a recent interview with Infogrames' head honcho, Phil Harrison. Those who are still tossing dimes deciding whether they'd pick up a copy or not for their PlayStation 3s, Xbox 360s, Wiis, or Windows rigs may love what's coming before that. Atari has plans to release demos for before their version's respective release dates.

Atari held an event for its upcoming video game title, Alone in the Dark (Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii, PC), at Hampstead, London, and as one would expect, oodles of information and videos were let out and shown to the lucky audience. Want to know what they found out? Check it out at the full article.

Phil Harrison, Infogrames' new top boss, was never secretive over his plans to cater games to the new broader market. Alone in the Dark (PlayStation 3, PlayStation 2, Windows, Xbox 360) will probably be the last major mainstream title queued up in Atari's arsenal if this was true. Thankfully it's not - well not in entirety. Atari will still be catering to hardcore, but not in the same respects as before. Go to the full story for more.

Sometimes, when people start over, they change their names. In the case of Infogrames, David Gardner and Phil Harrison are thinking of dropping the company name altogether in the interest of starting anew. More on this proposed new beginning after the jump.

It looks as if Phil Harrison, now president of Infogrames, is kick-starting his plans for his new colleagues and company. Word is that Infogrames-subsidiary Atari has just received a proposal to be bought out at a reasonable price, and a special review team has been assembled to review the advantages of the agreement. More at the full story.

Curious as to what the future holds for Phil Harrison? Then this update direct from the ex-SCEI President himself should give us a look into what awaits Phil, via his first speech as Infogrames president. We have to say, he's got his work cut out for him. Check all the details in the full article.

Have you always been asking yourself, where did Phil Harrison go? Well, he joined Infogrames. The ex-Sony Computer Entertainment president now plays a significant role in Atari's slow comeback - though that would be an understatement in itself. He is the president of Atari-parent Infogrames, after all. More at the full story.

There's been talk of the upcoming E3 being downsized by the just-held Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007. Reasons vary: this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo will be an invitation-only event, and the GDC saw a 32 percent rise of attendance.

We've all witnessed so much hype for this year's GDC, all with good reason. The GDC people worked hard to bring out a good show; GDC boss Jamil Moledina and his crew brought a good load of dealmaking, press conferences and industry parties to go around in the event.  It also helped that they were able to secure the interesting hands-on hardware workshops with Microsoft and Intel, as well as hotshot keynote speakers such as Shigeru Miyamoto, Phil Harrison and Cliff Bleszinkski.

Said GDC boss Moledina:

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Our alumni attendees uniformly felt it was the best GDC they've attended in recent years, citing the high quality and relevance of sessions, while newcomers were saying it was the best event in the game industry where they made connections and deals with all the key people they now had access to.

More than 16,300 people and 260 exhibitors attended this year's GDC, seeing a rise of 30 and 32 percent, respectively. Everybody's expecting an even bigger attendance at next year's GDC, but as Moledina cites, it's not the size of the event, but the quality that matters. This may exactly be why the usual E3 people are moving to the GDC.

 

There is much to see at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) currently going down today. Now, in case you find yourself lost with the information flooding this event (or perhaps live under a rock), we'll be providing a basic rundown on what can be expected to take place once the event goes full swing:

Major keynote speakers

• Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo will be expected to kick things off with his major keynote speech "A Creative Vision," although it is expected that Nintendo is not going to be releasing any new info...at least for now.
• Sony Computer Entertainment Inc (SCEI) boss Phil Harrison is also going to be present, and will be doing the keynote speech titled "Game 3.0: Developing and Creating for the Third Age of Video Games," which may possibly carry details on new firmware updates for the PS3, among other things. Keep track of Phil's keynote this March 7, Wednesday.

Events summary

The conference proper will be host to more than 350 lectures panels, tutorials and round-table discussions taking place from March 5 to 9, 2007. Going into specifics, expect these activities to take place within these GDC sub-categories:

• GDC Expo
• GDC Mobile
• The Serious Games Summit GDC
• The Independent Games Festival (IGF)
• The Game Developers Choice Awards
• Game Connection
• Video Games Live
  

Just make sure to click on the links to see what sort of goodies you can expect, such as composer Koji Kondo's performance over at the Video Games Live event. The GDC runs from March 5 to March 9 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. Looking further ahead, the GDC 2008 is expected to take place from February 18 to 22 next year.

In celebration of the exclusively held  upcoming Game Developer's Conference, a few gamers came up with a list of their most popular gaming predictions, and why it's possible, or not for these to come true. While we may never know what'll actually happen, there are still reasons to think that these predictions will come true or not, based on observations and available hearsay.
  
Here's a list of what will most likely happen.
1. Microsoft will unveil the rumored black Xbox 360 with HDMI and a 120 GB hard drive.
2. Microsoft will unveil more details about the Halo 3 multiplayer beta.
3. Internet commentators will love Shigeru Miyamoto's keynote and hate Phil Harrison's.
4. Microsoft will announce a final release date for Halo 3.
5. Activision will reveal details about the Wii Guitar Hero.

A list of those that have a 50 percent chance of happening, follows.
1. Nintendo will announce spring 2008 release dates for Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Mario Galaxy.
2. Sony will emerge with a wave of support from the press based on its products and media outreach.
3. Sony will unveil more about Killzone 2.
4. David Jaffe will get hammered and reveal more God of War III secrets.

The following predictions, however, are the least likely to happen.
1. Microsoft reduces the price on the standard white Xbox 360s after unveiling the black model.
2. Sony will announce a price drop for the PlayStation 3.
3. Nintendo announces Wii with DVD release date for the U.S.
4. Blizzard announces Diablo 3 or StarCraft 2 for 2009.

The above list of predictions, of course, reflect the analysis of one group of gamers, but we never know: those least likely to happen could actually come true. Mind you, all of these predictions will be proven or not at the GDC. Till then, this makes for a nice list of speculations. What are your predictions?