Stevenotes? Meh. The suit-and-tie speech that's getting gamers riled up this morning is Microsoft's GDC keynote, which promises big news about the Xbox 360's upcoming year in software.
Corporate vice president of Live, software and services John Schappert, who joined the company in August coming from Electronic Arts, will deliver an address on Wednesday, February 20 called "A Future Wide Open: Unleashing the Creative Community." In an email announcing the keynote, the GDC described it thusly:
I think the bolded line, there, is the money shot: Top developers will, perhaps sharing the stage with Schappert, announce their plans for Xbox 360 development in 2008.
This would seemingly dovetail nicely with Xbox chief Don Mattrick's announcement that "several exciting yet-to-be-announced" are on their way to the Xbox 360 platform in 2008.
Hey, speaking of Don Mattrick, where is he at? Another Electronic Arts transplant who joined the company just before Schappert, he's the actual head of the Xbox 360 business -- but hasn't made a public appearance yet. Maybe he'll put in a cameo appearance during the keynote, just to reassure people that he exists and isn't just an urban legend?
The following day's keynote, breaking with tradition a bit, won't be delivered by a hardware manufacturer or even a game industry figure: It's inventor and futurist Ray Kurzweil, talking about "The Next 20 Years Of Gaming."
Keynotes [GDC 2008]
