MAG Announced during Sony’s Press Conference at E3

Today was the Sony press conference at E3, the final press conference of the big three.  Microsoft really blew everyone out of the water, while Nintendo was completely anticlimactic.  All that was left was Sony’s press conference.  Sony really needed to have a good press release considering the announcement that Final Fantasy XIII would not be a PS3 exclusive title.

Nothing really stood out to me about the conference besides the Little Big Planet demo (I played the Beta the other night).  I am an absolute advocate of user generated content.  Engaged users with fresh perspective are always going to produce better levels and content than any paid designer.  Nuff said, Little Big Planet is going to be a good bundle to bring in a younger crowd but it will also appeal to a wide demographic.

Actually, I lied.  What did stand out to me was the final announcement: MAG.  This is the project that I’m currently working on, and like I’ve said before, non-disclosure agreements are a big deal in this industry so that’s why I don’t talk about my projects.  But since it was announced I get to give a big shout out to it because I think this project is just what it stands for.

MAG = MASSIVELY ACTION GAME

That is the current working title at least. The MAG concept is really very simple:  MAG is a standard multiplayer FPS multiplied by sixteen. Literally.

What do I mean by that?  Most FPS support multiplayer in multiples of 4 players.  4 players means two even teams.  The standard FPS supports 16-person multiplayer games. MAG will support two teams of 128 people broken up into 2 platoons of 8 squads with 16 people to a squad.

So MAG / Standard FPS = 256 / 16 = 16.0

In my opinion, the sheer magnitude of MAG will blow everyone out of the water when they actually see it. I’m very thrilled to be working on this project right now.

For more info, check out the press conferences, read the message boards, or look for upcoming articles on Kotaku…

IGN and GameSpy’s Webcast from E3

Kotaku coverage of the Sony press conference