Through the years, Harmonix Music Systems) Independent Video Game Developer">Harmonix has established itself as one of the main proponents of the rhythm-based genre of today's video game titles. After conquering the next-gen consoles, one has to wonder what other things are up the company's sleeves.

Well, the published session list for Game Developers Conference 2008 might give us a clue. According to the official site of GDC 2008, Harmonix will hold a session titled "Your Music Is the Game: Designing the OTHER Project at Harmonix" with lead designer Chris Foster as the designated speaker.

Some interesting points of the planned session include:

• Their new title faced unique challenges: beats would not be authored by tech-savvy musicians, but would instead be algorithmically generated, and the game would lack the dedicated peripherals that were critical to the success of the Guitar Hero series
• Special attention is devoted to: the development of procedural gameplay algorithms; unique input mechanics; and triaging unexpected changes in scope and schedule.
  

We highlighted one of the above statements for a reason. We are not certain if you are aware of this, but Harmonix applied for a trademark back in 2002 for Beat Boy. Quite interestingly, the trademark had the description of "an electronic video game software for portable listening devices".

What do you think guys? This could fit well with the Sony PSP, Nintendo DS, and other "next-gen" mobile phones. We guess we'll never know for certain until GDC kicks off on February 18. We hope an official announcement will come after that.

Opening prime horizons in the Eastern hemisphere, the first Games Convention Asia is good to be in Singapore next week. And we've just heard that Electronic Arts, Nintendo Company Ltd., and Sony will be a few of several big name publishers to attend the Asian contingent of Leipzig's trade show.

Given that all three companies have Asian satellites in Southeast Asian nations, it's likely that this news comes with little surprise. Readers from the region might want to check out the conference, because Sony has claimed that it will feature several games for the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Portable for the duration of the event's exhibition leg.

Nintendo will also be using the event to launch the Wii console within the territory. The nations this "territory" includes has yet to be clarified. EA on the other hand will be showing off Crytek's Crysis, EA Sports' FIFA 08, and Harmonix' Rock Band at the four-day exhibition affair.

Other big names to show up at GC Asia are well known in the region, such as Blizzard Entertainment, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Nokia, 10tacle, and Asiasoft. Need to know more? Keep your eyes glued to this space for more developments as they come in.

Guitar Hero for the Xbox 360 is already available on some areas, and so Ars Technica caught up with Harmonix producer Daniel Sussman to ask his views of this hit game. Although Harmonix and Red Octane has been bought by MTV and Activision respectively, Daniel says that he honestly feels excited about what other developers could bring to the table of the music game genre. We are, too...

There may be some gamers who think that while the gameplay updates are great in GH II, the songlist is not quite as varied as the first game. Daniel thinks, however, that with 10 more songs on the Guitar Hero II song list, there is actually more variety in there than in the first title. Releasing GH song downloads is also a new and exciting opportunity for record companies, bands and developers.

Daniel also wonders about the possibility of Sony releasing one of their titles on Live Arcade. The idea came from bringing the Sony-owned Frequency/Amplitude brand to the Live Arcade or as a PS3 download. Daniel's team is also considering trying to incorporate custom soundtracks in Guitar Hero for the Xbox 360.

Daniel says that he's living his dream, making a game like Guitar Hero. His last words may be up to the reader to digest well; when asked about his fave platform for GH, Daniel replies Guitar Hero can be a great experience for all platforms, albeit you don't really need much CPU mojo to run a great rhythm game...