The best of GDC 2015That's a wrap! GDC is over yet again, meaning we've got our top moments from the show floor for you, or should we say, favorites pieces of tech we wish we could have right now.The conference gave us some great panels once again, and a surprisingly large amount of virtual reality - even more so than last year. There were even some neat little surprises in the form of awesome hardware.Check out our favorites from this year's shindig below.HTC Vive"OMG have you used the HTC Vive?" were perhaps the most uttered words we heard at GDC. "Better than the Oculus Rift," "Best virtual reality experience I've had," were a few more so it's safe to say that the best and most talked about moment from the show was Valve and HTC's joint venture into virtual reality.It was also probably the best kept secret from the two companies since there weren't too many whispers about HTC's interests in VR and Valve kept denying it was creating its own device. The Vive is still in the early stages so expect a lot of changes but so far the experience has been nothing short of amazing. It's as if the Vive has combined the graphical feats of the Rift and the peripherals from the Morpheus to create a winning VR HMD. The final version, which will be on sale by Christmas this year, doesn't have an official price yet but we're guessing north of $300. Project MorpheusSony was in the same spot Valve was last year with Project Morpheus but that doesn't mean it didn't have tricks of its own this year.The company threw a special ninja event for select press members to reveal the almost-final build of the Morpheus head mounted display. Huge improvements were made and have definitely enhanced the headset. It's lighter and even more comfortable than most HMD's out there, and so far has provided a fantastic, immersive and interactive experience. There's even a release date set for next year: early 2016.Steam LinkSo we saw the Steam Machines again in the wild … but the biggest draw for PC gaming in the living came from a little, unassuming device called Steam Link.Launching alongside the Steam Controller in November and priced at $49 (about £33, AU$64, though no formal international prices have been given), Valve's own PC deity Gabe Newell gave us the details on the streaming box himself. Apparently it's the cheaper, better option to streaming games from Steam to your television if you don't feel like adding another expensive machine to your crowded shelf. However, you'll still need a PC to stream like a well stocked Steam Machine - or a decent gaming rig. Nvidia ShieldAfter the Shield Portable, Shield Tablet and a slew of amazing graphics cards, Nvidia now has a console to add to its repertoire: the Nvidia Shield. After five years, the team produced a lovely, little, Android TV, high-end gaming console all wrapped in one piece. Don't be fooled by its pretty face though - it has nice innards too, including a Tegra X1 processor with 256-core Maxwell GPU.At just $199 (around £130, AU$255, but global prices are yet to be announced), this new Shield paired with Nvidia Grid may just take over the living room. We're sad it's all over but here's hoping we see even bigger and better things at E3 2015!GDC 2015: all the latest news and reviewsWith the advent of PAX East, a chunk of brave GDC attendees have left sunny California to head off into cold, snowy Boston. But there are plenty of people left milling about the show floor, and we're not done with this year's dev conference yet. So what have we seen so far? Hands on: Nvidia Shield reviewHands on: Valve Steam Controller reviewMicrosoft 'investigating the possibility' of streaming PC games to Xbox OneRazer updates OSVR virtual reality headsetHTC's Vive won't be the only SteamVR headsetValve is not secretly showing Portal 3 on the HTC ViveXbox One is bringing games to HoloLensExpect Gear VR 2 to launch at the end of the yearJohn Carmack answers 'why mobile VR' during GDCThese are the Steam Machines landing this holiday seasonNvidia announces Titan X, the 'most advanced GPU' ever builtGDC 2015: before the ExpoA little late in the day, but Nvidia also announced a Shield console that's also a 4K Android TV. The new Shield will only cost $199 (about £180, AU $255) and will come bundled with a controller.We thought virtual reality was huge last year but it's even bigger this year. Announced today, Sony has shown off a new Project Morpheus with updated specs.The new Morpheus packs an 1920 x RGB x 1080 OLED display with an impressive 120Hz refresh rate. The prototype has a 5.7-inch screen with a 100 degree field of view.Even better, Sony's Shuhei Yoshida confirmed that Project Morpheus will launch to consumers in the "first half of 2016".It's not Half-Life 3. Or the HTC Vive. But Valve is releasing a device called Steam Link, a $50 (about £32, $64) streaming box that will let you broadcast games from the PC to the TV. That will support 1080p at 60Hz with low latency.Valve also confirmed the final specs of its Steam Controller, which we'll be grabbing hands on with later this week. The Controller will have both touch (haptic pads still in place, then) and motion capabilities.With Nvidia integrating a feature called VR Direct into its latest high-end GPUs, it's no surprise AMD announced it's own VR software called LiquidVR.Beginning today, an alpha version of the development kit will be available to help devs make VR experiences better with AMD hardware.AMD says LiquidVR lets developers make virtual reality with less latency and better comfort and performance, as well as plug-and-play capabilities for a variety of VR headsets. The company has partnered with Oculus Rift and other "key VR developers" to further improve its initiative.Unity Technologies, the popular company known for its multi-platform engine and development tool, announced Unity 5. Available immediately, the engine is touted as the most powerful, next-gen Unity to date.Huge improvements have been to graphics and an expanded editor feature set gives developers the potential to create gaming experiences across 21 platforms. Unity Cloud Build has also been released to allow cloud computing which will "increase productivity" to devs can focus on the creation of games.Steam Machines haven't disappeared. They've just been ... scarce. That will hopefully change this week.Syber, a division of CyberPowerPC, has unveiled not one or two but a whopping six machines including the: Steam Machine-Mini, Steam Machine-Mercury and Steam Machine-Switch, as well as the Steam Machine-P, Steam Machine-K and Steam Machine-X.Amazon and its little 360 degree speaker, Echo have games on the brain. A beta SDK has been released for devs to start building apps and games that can be voice controlled with Alexa.GDC 2015: show floor speculationUpdate: GDC has begun! But the meaty portions of the conference haven't quite kicked off yet with the Expo starting Wednesday and only a few panels taking place tomorrow.Interestingly, we've heard more about SteamVR from all the way in Barcelona, Spain.The HTC Vive - a joint virtual reality venture between Valve and HTC - was revealed during MWC 2015. We're expecting to hear a lot more about it later this week in San Francisco.Article continued below ...GDC 2014 was full of surprises and we're hoping GDC 2015 will be too. It's still early but the panel schedule is filling up fast and it'll be March before you know it.To recap, the Game Developer's Conference takes place during March 2 - 6 and features over 400 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions with speakers from all over the gaming space. The GDC Expo is part of the conference and simultaneously highlights tools, platforms and services used by game devs. The conference also is filled with indie hopefuls and occasionally, major breaking news. Read on for what we want to see at the next GDC.What's cooking, Microsoft?The time for augmented reality is now! At least that's what it seems like thanks to Microsoft's new "holographic," untethered head mounted display. We were able to go hands on with the device during the Windows 10 event in Redmond, Washington but we're hoping for a longer demo session on the GDC expo floor. With a session like "The Future of Gaming Across the Microsoft Ecosystem" from Head of Xbox Phil Spencer, we think it's safe to assume the HoloLens will make an appearance. We didn't see new hardware from Microsoft at last year's GDC, but it didn't leave without presenting something exciting. DirectX 12 - a new API that will allow full use of most modern graphics cards - was announced prior to the conference and then discussed in detail during Microsoft's panel. "Developing Games for Windows 10" is another panel the company will be hosting which should provide some insight into what kind of games we can expect to see later this year.Wondering if the HoloLens really projects holograms? Read our take on it.Project Morpheus part twoAccording to Polygon, Sony's will be hosting a whopping four hour long conference on Tuesday, March 3 that's all about its virtual reality headset, Project Morpheus. Aside from updates on the company's VR future, there will be hands on time with the HMD and hopefully a bunch of brand new info, after all, we can't just spend four hours in VR-land ... can we?To everyone's surprise, Sony unveiled Project Morpheus at last year's GDC. We haven't heard a lot from the Morpheus development front though we're expecting Sony will bring something new to its VR headset. Perhaps the next build or enhanced latency experience.Check out the video below to see our last Morpheus demo. YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OQtByjyD-4Will the Steam Machines come out of hiding?It looks like more than just Steam Machines will be at GDC. Valve will also have the latest Steam Controller to show off and demo on the show floor. There will also be living room devices we haven't seen before, and more excitingly, brand spanking new SteamVR hardware.Earlier in the year, Valve told TechRadar: "We will not be attending CES, but we do have a large Steam Machine presence planned for GDC." Exciting!Last we heard, there were quite a few Steam Machines in the running, plus more recently announced Asus machines … but so far Alienware has been the most vocal about its Alpha - which will start shipping pretty soon in November.Valve also promised the Steam Controller and SteamOS in 2015 after announcing a delay.We may or may not see the latest build of the controller and OS but according to company representative Doug Lombardi, we definitely will see the latest Steam Box prototypes.Oculus to debut final build?It seems pretty obvious that VR will yet again dominate the gaming hardware scene. This means we're expecting something big from the biggest face of virtual reality: the Oculus Rift. Mountains of rumors have been circulating that the Rift will finally hit consumer stands in 2015. This makes GDC the perfect stage to show off the latest iteration of the VR headset. We saw Crescent Bay debut last year during Oculus Connect and we tried it again during CES 2015 where we found the HMD to be just as exciting the first time around.YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?x-yt-ts=1422579428&x-yt-cl=85114404&v=jvDb0C5pGYIWe're hoping Oculus will tell us when we can see a consumer device soon.PC isn't dead - it never wasThe age old debate of consoles versus PCs is a silly one, and getting staler every year. The GDC blog basically puts this argument to rest with data its culled from a poll of over 2,000 game devs."PC and mobile still reign in terms of platform popularity; 56% of survey respondents said their current game will be released on PC and 50% said their current project will release on smartphones or tablets, as compared to 53 and 52% (respectively) a year prior." It seems like the PC - which a lot of people kept moaning about last year and how it was a dying breed - is scheduled to make a comeback, or at least show that it never left the scene. The development for the Xbox One and PS4 are behind but edging ever closer to the PC and mobile numbers. Essentially there are a bunch of factors to consider when developing for different platforms, like where you'll be getting the most money from, who you're catering to and so forth but neither the PC or console are dying at all ... each set have enough devs for both gaming variations to last until the next PS5 or Xbox Two, and beyond.