RE: The compression technology being used in actual GBA games...
There are actually GBA games out there already using this compression codec. AM3 purchased the compression technology from a failed French company named 4X Technologies.
The compression is fairly good, but don't expect long cutscenes in GBA games from now on. Depending on your compression settings, a minute of video with sound still costs about a megabyte, which is 1/8th of a standard game cart size.
There are several other competing GBA codecs out there as well, though they seem to get about the same compression results.
I am also employed at a game development house. My boss explained the market thus:
Think back to 1994. The SNES is the rage and games sell for $49 each in the US. At that time, the most expensive game produced for the SNES was Yoshi's Island, which cost $600,000.
Games now cost a whole lot more to make. Get a team of twenty highly educated people to work full time on a project for two years and your game will end up costing between $3 and $5 million (Shenmue, the most expensive game ever so far, cost $20 million to produce). The catch, of course, is that the games themselves still sell for only $49. So to make a profit, a publisher must sell through many many many more units than were required in the early nineties.
As a logical (but stupid) consequence, publishers are only willing to invest in games that they think are guaranteed to sell a certain number of units. This thinking stifles creativity, because taking risks in games can easily crash and burn. So while your idea may NOT be something along the lines of "it's GTA3... but SURVIVAL HORROR!!", publishers are still pretty unwilling to hear it unless you happen to work for a proven developer (like id, Blizzard, Bungie, Crystal Dynamics, Silicon Knights, Rare, etc).
Instead, publishers are looking for ways other than gameplay to move units, which is why we get tons of licensed-based games on the market. Almost all of the top 25 GBA games, for example, are products based on existing IPs (Mario, Sonic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, etc). Every once and a while something unique like Advance Wars will sneak into the top sellers, but usually only the tried-and-true franchises make are able to penetrate the market.
Here is what you should do: Step 1: Produce a game design document. This is a document that describes EVERY SINGLE aspect of your game. This doesn't mean that the game design may not change over the course of the project, but it means that you'd rather not have it change dramatically. Lay everything out here on paper: the concept, the characters, the control scheme, the layout of all the levels, the enemies and their behaviors, how scoring works, how the UI will work, and how long you plan to spend to finish the entire project. Step 2: Type all this up and make it look nice. If you have some technical or art skills, making a simple engine/mockup of some of the things you discuss will help. Depending on the size of your game, the resulting document will probably be between 50 and 200 pages long. Step 3:Be sure to note areas where adjustments in the design can easily be made if the mechanic you've chosen doesn't turn out to be as much fun as you had hoped. Note entire modes/levels/characters/enemies that may be cut if time pressures become a problem. Step 4: Submit this monster to a game development house along with an application for a game designer position. You wont get your game made, but if you can get into the industry and make a name for yourself, you *might* be able to eventually make your game in a couple of years.
As other have said, publishers are not interested in ideas unless you have significant experience and a proven track record.
I was in almost the exact same situation about two years ago. I graduated with degrees in both CS and Japanese and headed straight for the game industry.
Most of the important stuff has already been said, but I'll add a few more comments. First of all, you must start writing games during your free time. A GBA demo is great, but a PC demo is fine too. If you do a PC demo, your work will probably be more impressive if you minimize your reliance on 3rd party APIs like DirectX and OpenGL. On the other hand, if you can demonstrate a knack for quality game design, good AI, and/or good character handling, writing a demo in DirectX won't be detrimental.
Secondly, pick up some books (somebody mentioned the Game Programming Gems series, which are great) about game development and familiarize yourself with common methods and algorithms. This will help you at interview time when they ask you to implement A* on paper or to explain how you would write a 3D renderer on a platform that does not support floating point (like the GBA).
You've missed the Game Developers Conference this year, but if you are still looking next year it is a great place to hand our resumes and make contacts. You can apply to be a volunteer, and they'll give you full access to the conference in exchange for about 20 hours worth of work.
Finally, there is your Japanese skills. If you are interested in working in Japan as a programmer, I should warn you that you'll face lower pay, the annoying Japanese seniority system, and possibly even longer hours than here in the states. However, it can be done, even by foreigners with very little Japanese under their belt. I'd suggest checking out this article (especially the last 1/3rd or so) concerning (among other things) a professional console developer went to work for Sega in Japan. Also, Tokyopia is a great forum run by foreigners with gaming interests in Japan.
One other thing to consider: Many Japanese game companies have American offices, but most of them only localize and distribute games developed in Japan. Do you want to write code, or perform translation/localization? If your goal is code and you end up working in the States, I am sorry to say that you probably won't have many chances to use Japanese professionally.
Slashdot Mirror
Remember that the GBA screen is only 240x160. There are games on the market already using full motion video. Check out the new Lion King game.
RE: The compression technology being used in actual GBA games...
There are actually GBA games out there already using this compression codec. AM3 purchased the compression technology from a failed French company named 4X Technologies.
The compression is fairly good, but don't expect long cutscenes in GBA games from now on. Depending on your compression settings, a minute of video with sound still costs about a megabyte, which is 1/8th of a standard game cart size.
There are several other competing GBA codecs out there as well, though they seem to get about the same compression results.
I am also employed at a game development house. My boss explained the market thus:
Think back to 1994. The SNES is the rage and games sell for $49 each in the US. At that time, the most expensive game produced for the SNES was Yoshi's Island, which cost $600,000.
Games now cost a whole lot more to make. Get a team of twenty highly educated people to work full time on a project for two years and your game will end up costing between $3 and $5 million (Shenmue, the most expensive game ever so far, cost $20 million to produce). The catch, of course, is that the games themselves still sell for only $49. So to make a profit, a publisher must sell through many many many more units than were required in the early nineties.
As a logical (but stupid) consequence, publishers are only willing to invest in games that they think are guaranteed to sell a certain number of units. This thinking stifles creativity, because taking risks in games can easily crash and burn. So while your idea may NOT be something along the lines of "it's GTA3... but SURVIVAL HORROR!!", publishers are still pretty unwilling to hear it unless you happen to work for a proven developer (like id, Blizzard, Bungie, Crystal Dynamics, Silicon Knights, Rare, etc).
Instead, publishers are looking for ways other than gameplay to move units, which is why we get tons of licensed-based games on the market. Almost all of the top 25 GBA games, for example, are products based on existing IPs (Mario, Sonic, Yu-Gi-Oh!, etc). Every once and a while something unique like Advance Wars will sneak into the top sellers, but usually only the tried-and-true franchises make are able to penetrate the market.
Here is what you should do:
Step 1: Produce a game design document. This is a document that describes EVERY SINGLE aspect of your game. This doesn't mean that the game design may not change over the course of the project, but it means that you'd rather not have it change dramatically. Lay everything out here on paper: the concept, the characters, the control scheme, the layout of all the levels, the enemies and their behaviors, how scoring works, how the UI will work, and how long you plan to spend to finish the entire project.
Step 2: Type all this up and make it look nice. If you have some technical or art skills, making a simple engine/mockup of some of the things you discuss will help. Depending on the size of your game, the resulting document will probably be between 50 and 200 pages long.
Step 3:Be sure to note areas where adjustments in the design can easily be made if the mechanic you've chosen doesn't turn out to be as much fun as you had hoped. Note entire modes/levels/characters/enemies that may be cut if time pressures become a problem.
Step 4: Submit this monster to a game development house along with an application for a game designer position. You wont get your game made, but if you can get into the industry and make a name for yourself, you *might* be able to eventually make your game in a couple of years.
As other have said, publishers are not interested in ideas unless you have significant experience and a proven track record.
waka
I was in almost the exact same situation about two years ago. I graduated with degrees in both CS and Japanese and headed straight for the game industry.
Most of the important stuff has already been said, but I'll add a few more comments. First of all, you must start writing games during your free time. A GBA demo is great, but a PC demo is fine too. If you do a PC demo, your work will probably be more impressive if you minimize your reliance on 3rd party APIs like DirectX and OpenGL. On the other hand, if you can demonstrate a knack for quality game design, good AI, and/or good character handling, writing a demo in DirectX won't be detrimental.
Secondly, pick up some books (somebody mentioned the Game Programming Gems series, which are great) about game development and familiarize yourself with common methods and algorithms. This will help you at interview time when they ask you to implement A* on paper or to explain how you would write a 3D renderer on a platform that does not support floating point (like the GBA).
You've missed the Game Developers Conference this year, but if you are still looking next year it is a great place to hand our resumes and make contacts. You can apply to be a volunteer, and they'll give you full access to the conference in exchange for about 20 hours worth of work.
Finally, there is your Japanese skills. If you are interested in working in Japan as a programmer, I should warn you that you'll face lower pay, the annoying Japanese seniority system, and possibly even longer hours than here in the states. However, it can be done, even by foreigners with very little Japanese under their belt. I'd suggest checking out this article (especially the last 1/3rd or so) concerning (among other things) a professional console developer went to work for Sega in Japan. Also, Tokyopia is a great forum run by foreigners with gaming interests in Japan.
One other thing to consider: Many Japanese game companies have American offices, but most of them only localize and distribute games developed in Japan. Do you want to write code, or perform translation/localization? If your goal is code and you end up working in the States, I am sorry to say that you probably won't have many chances to use Japanese professionally.
waka