GDC: Sights From the Show Floor

The Game Developer Conference kicked off on Monday here in San Francisco with thousands of developers gathering to see the latest from game engine vendors, system makers, and chip design firms.

Sony’s Project Morpheus announcement has received the most buzz at GDC this week. The consumer electronics giant unveiled a prototype virtual reality headset that works with the company’s PlayStation 4 console to present gamers with a fully immersive gaming experience—and is providing demos to attendees on a limited basis.

Valve is showing off its redesigned Steam controller here at GDC, giving attendees the opportunity to test drive them with a handful of Steam Machine gaming computers.

Oculus VR debuted its second-generation virtual reality headset at GDC, working out some kinks and boosting the performance of the much-ballyhooed Rift. The startup is also building up a nice little ecosystem of software and hardware partners—here, a GDC attendee test drives the STEM System wireless motion tracking controller from Sixense on the first-gen Rift developer kit.

WarGaming.net easily has the most martial booth here at GDC, complete with secret silos and a heavy metal situation map that’s got attendees on war footing.

Facebook has an exhibition floor presence at GDC for the first time this year—and the social networking giant is happy to push its own “Like” button.

We’re not sure what the teepee has to do with mobile entertainment ad firm Glispa’s performance marketing platform, but there’s nothing else like it at GDC. Glispa brands itself as “your online rainmaker,” so maybe that’s the connection.

Robots are nowhere to be seen at this year’s show and virtual reality is the new rage, but one niche technology that never seems to go away at GDC is the motion-capture bodysuit. Here, an OptiTrack dancer takes center stage.

Qualcomm is here at GDC to sell the benefits of its Adreno mobile graphics engine for providing more visually rich gaming experiences in smaller and smaller packages.

He doesn’t have a teepee as a backdrop, but this rep from level design toolmaker Saltr can make the duck face with the best of the exhibition floor eye candy.