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Apple Has Democratised Platform-Specific Game Design
Posted by Mark Wilson at 7:40 AM on March 7, 2008
In all of the major announcement that hit during Apple's software development kit (SDK) meeting today, it's easy to overlook what may have been the most important aspect—the SDK itself. Formerly Apple's internal development tools, the software package is being released to the entire public for no charge starting today. It doesn't need an expensive or hard to acquire development kit. You don't need to pitch Sony on why you're worthy for a dev kit during times of shortages.
Hell, you don't even need an iPhone (though it's recommended). All you need is an OSX based Mac and, you know, a bit of genius and a lot of work ethic. (Apparently you can actually develop right on the iPhone as well...but who knows how well that'll work.)
So you're thinking, "But I want to sell my product on their Apple Store. That'll cost me a tonne and be impossible". Nope, it won't be either of those things.
As Apple's software development kit (SDK) presentation continues, SEGA reveals what they've had up their sleeve—Super Monkey Ball. Boasting an excellent framerate, the developers claim:
Good news software enthusiasts! The final version of the Enemy Territory: Quake Wars software development kit is available on the Quake Wars community site. Along with the now complete SDK, players can download the MegaTexture Media Pack to create new in-game surfaces. 
Massive today continues to support the World in Conflict community, making the software development kit (SDK) to its popular action RTS available for download.
Microsoft has announced a new "visual simulation platform," dubbed ESP, to be released in January 2008. The company imagines the toolkit will be used to create applications for training, learning, modening, military, and aviation.
In this week's Steam update, Valve has revealed they have updated the Source SDK for games included in The Orange Box. This means modders will now be able to easily create new maps and content for their favourite games including Half-Life 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2. You can access the SDK through the "Tools" tab in your friendly neighbourhood Steam client. If they like your mod enough, you may even find it featured on the Steam site. Good luck and happy modding!
The latest edition of the Source software developers kit adds support for the three most recent releases from Valve in Portal, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life 2: Episode Two. You may know them collectively better as The Orange Box. That means we should be on the receiving end of a slew of new Portal and Team Fortress 2 user created maps courtesy of the Hammer World Editor and fabulous machinima nearing the levels of Valve's internally created TF2 character class clips courtesy of the Faceposer tool.
According to developer blog Inner Bits, Sony has pushed out the 1.80 version of its PLAYSTATION 3 software development kit, adding a trio of handy new features for programmers. In addition to those new treats, Sony has decreased the memory footprint of the operating system on the PS3's main and graphics RAM. What once required 96MB of the PS3's 512MB of RAM now only demands 72MB of RAM. That should hopefully lead to better looking games that require less loading from disk.
