Gaming News Round-Up: January 27th, 2005

Today's round-up includes information on a new keynote speech for Game Developers Conference, as well as an MLB-licensed Nintendo baseball title that neatly shows the baseball licensing loophole for hardware manufacturers. - J Allard, the corporate vice president at Microsoft in charge of the Xbox division, will deliver the keynote address at the 2005 Game Developers Conference at 10:30 on March 9th, at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco. (The CMP Game Group, owner of Gamasutra and Game Developer Magazine, hosts the GDC.) Allard's keynote, titled "The Future of Games: Unlocking the Opportunity" will be on the topic of taking advantage of new technology to improve both games and the game development process. The keynote is part of the GDC's Vision Track, new to the conference this year, which focuses on anticipating the future of gaming. - Nintendo has announced a first-person baseball game called Pennant Chase Baseball, to be released for GameCube on April 4th. The game will feature all 30 of the actual Major League Baseball parks, with a roster of players drawn from the current league. Since Nintendo is a console manufacturer and the game will be published by them as a first-party, Pennant Chase Baseball will not fall afoul of Take Two's recent MLB exclusivity license for third-party baseball games. The game will be co-developed with Exile Interactive, prevously creators of World Series Baseball 2K3 for Sega.