Information overload.
1 Sept 05

Even though I don't want to dwell on it, I'm going to post a Hurricane Katrina update. As you might recall, we live in Houston. I'm sure many of you have read reports of an estimated 25,000 refugees from the Superdome being transported to the Astrodome here. That's just scratching the surface though. With people staying with friends and relatives, people in hotels and others just escaping to Houston, estimates place about 75,000 - 100,000 people from the affected regions in the greater Houston area.

The city here has been divided up into zones with churches and charities each heading up relief efforts in those zones. They're starting with basically a census finding out who and how many people are here. Then they're working to find longer term housing for people who need it, jobs for people, clothing, meals, arranging for school enrollment for kids and communication with loved ones. It's a massive effort and could go on months. Please keep everyone involved in your thoughts and prayers.

I was reading an interesting article on Gamasutra. It's about developers and the Playstation 3. It goes to describe how Sony is improving developer support having learned their lesson from the PS2. I was also impressed that they're throwing both the AGEIA and Havok physics engines in the SDK for free. That's great since as I previously mentioned, it's the easiest way to unlock the power of the cell.

I was going to go on a long rant about how this is an opportunity to take games to the next level. Then I realized it's really quite simple. To take games to the next level, hardware manufacturers need to make systems for developers and developers need to make games for gamers. I won't talk about the mental blocks that push things the other way, but the easier the hardware is to use, the more developers can focus on creating the games that gamers want. All the hardware teams claim they've done their part. First, we'll see if that's true. Then, we'll see if developers can hold up their end of the bargain.

Oh, and don't forget about our Contest.

Jason