GDC 2012 reveals Super Mario 3D Land, Resident Evil Revelations postmortems

Game Developers Conference 2012 show organizers have revealed major new Japanese-helmed talks giving postmortems of Super Mario 3D Land and Resident Evil Revelations, also detailing the other translated talks for the event. Once again this year, GDC is the only Western conference to feature a series of Japanese-language talks from some of the region's most influential developers. In order to bring this content to GDC's English-speaking attendees, the show has partnered with prominent localization firm 8-4, which has sourced speakers and will provide simultaneous English translations for all of these Japanese talks. With this expanded partnership, GDC has ramped up the amount and quality of the simultaneously translated Japanese and English presentations. These talks will all take place between March 7 through March 9 in the San Francisco Moscone Center's North Hall, Room 132, and are part of GDC's robust Main Conference. Here are the latest Japanese-language talks to be featured at GDC 2012, including two major new announcements: - As part of GDC's Game Design track, Nintendo game director Koichi Hayashida will detail the use of stereoscopic visuals drove the design and development of the recent 3DS hit Super Mario 3D Land. In his talk, "Thinking In 3D: The Development of Super Mario 3D Land," Hayashida will share his insight on developing for and understanding the fundamentals of 3D-enabled devices. In addition, he will share several key development philosophies learned from Mario creator and legendary Nintendo designer, Shigeru Miyamoto. - Elsewhere in the Game Design track, Capcom producer Masachika Kawata will host "Revealing the Truth About Resident Evil Revelations." Here, he will explain why Capcom chose to bring this major franchise to Nintendo's newest 3DS handheld, and will delve into how the team made some key changes to the game's controls and design, while maintaining the series' classic survival horror feel. - In yet another Game Design talk, Mikio Watanabe, the vice president and COO of shoot 'em up game developer Cave, will host "Retro and Japanese Social Games on Smartphones." This session will detail how Cave adapted several of its classic bullet-hell shooters to modern smartphones, while simultaneously exploring the current Japanese mobile game business, and what Western developers should be careful of when bringing their games to Japan. In addition to the above sessions, GDC 2012 will also feature translated Japanese-language talks featuring Groove Coaster and Space Invaders Infinity Gene creator Reisuke Ishida on unique game design, Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune on the future of Japanese development, Sony's Yoshiaki Yamaguchi on developing Gravity Rush for the PlayStation Vita, and a special Classic Game Postmortem from Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada. Besides these numerous sessions, the GDC translators' room will also include a number of English-to-Japanese translated talks, giving Japanese-speaking attendees a chance to check out content from a number of the show's other notable speakers. The English sessions receiving translations include a talk with Square Enix CTO Julien Merceron (previously of Ubisoft and Eidos), a look at Naughty Dog's strategy for developing high quality games on-time, and Chair Entertainment on the production of Infinity Blade I and II, among many others. For more information on these or any other sessions at GDC 2012, please check out the event's official Schedule Builder, which shows the current (and growing) lineup for the show so far. Also be sure to keep an eye on the official GDC news blog, which will showcase exciting new announcements for the show, in addition to this continuing series of posts pointing a spotlight at the show's most exciting, informative, and usual content. To keep up-to-date on all the latest news about GDC 2012, please subscribe to updates from the GDC news page via Twitter, Facebook, or RSS. GDC 2012 will take place March 5 through March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and is owned and operated by Gamasutra parent company UBM TechWeb.