Company added 10,081 employees in past fiscal year
By TODD BISHOP
P-I REPORTER
Microsoft Corp. bulked up for battle with Google and other rivals by adding more than 10,000 employees worldwide in the past year -- the largest annual increase in the company's history.
New employment figures, quietly disclosed Wednesday on an informational section of the company's Web site, represent twice the amount of growth that Microsoft had publicly projected at the start of the fiscal year. The single-year increase is more than Google's entire work force.
In the Seattle area, Microsoft boosted its employee ranks by 3,938 -- a net addition reminiscent of the regional growth the company experienced at the height of the tech boom in the late 1990s.
Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli drops knowledge along with a new DX10 video. Check in for all the latest.
Crysis is obviously one of the biggest games on the PC radar this year. It's not hard to see why. From what's been shown of the game so far, and the DX10 video, the game looks gorgeous. From lush tropical environments to frozen wastes, soldiers in fatigues to outlandish, monolithic monstrosities, the environments and enemy designs in Crysis are strikingly realistic and instantly appealing.
In addition to its visuals, Crysis seems to be offering gameplay that combines the PC version of Far Cry with the feral powers present in the console-only Far Cry Instincts. In other words, the game looks to combine large outdoor battle arenas with brutal up-close melee abilities. Crysis' nano suit gives players the ability to toss around environmental objects like barrels, grab and fling enemies, as well as run at superhuman speeds, or bolster armor. Combining these abilities with a variety of firearms and vehicles is a tantalizing gaming prospect, something we all want to know more about.
IGN recently caught up with Crytek's CEO Cevat Yerli to get some insight into the game's development and features.
Check out hi-res images of this massively ambitious Sci-fi-RPG-FPS.
Featuring FPS, RPG and space combat elements all weaved together to present an open and free world, where players can become entirely immersed in a genuinely deep and involving play mechanic, The Precursors puts players in the role of a young pilot, who's tasked with uncovering secrets and solving the problems that go with them as he travels the galaxy visiting planets and getting into scrapes.
The game looks massively ambitious and will undoubtedly deliver a seemingly never-ending array of creatures, characters, weapons, vehicles, cultures and worlds. Expect to be in desert planets one minute and snow-covered ice planets the next and expect to bump into all manner of alien beings. In theory The Precursors could present players with a sense of openness and infinity not felt since we all first booted up Elite on our BBCs and Spectrums and allowed ourselves to waste away hours travelling through the seemingly open universe presented therein.
This game sounds a lot like Freelancer on the PC. I loved that game. I really hope this game is like that.
Funcom's PC MMOG Age of Conan is one of the flagship titles for Vista and DirectX 10, and to present us with a view of what the new version of DirectX means for the game, DX10-specific footage has been released.
...what exactly is so great about DX10 again? :/
This looks like 'WOW', with sub-Oblivion character models....not exactly impressive.
I see no "HOLY CRAP" factor in this AT ALL.
Current stuff on the PC looks better than this.
Well you gotta admit, the backgrounds and scenery looked great. Once the character models started appearing I quickly closed the video lol.
I thought the backgrounds and screnery were the worst part.....PS2 textures and low polys.
