Legendary game developer Jeff Minter, the Llamasoft founder behind vintage classics like Tempest 2k, has had musical visualizers on the brain for some time. Now, he wants to take “retina-searing” visuals with music to the next left with Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 console. His latest light synth, Neon, will even be bundled with the machine. If you’re impressed by the low-res, basic visualizer in iTunes (hey, Apple, when you going to update that), wait until you see Neon. More coverage has emerged since we last covered this story:

Screenshots, hard drive-eating movies, and info on the Neon platform [Llamasoft]

Interview with Jeff Minter, Neon creator [Guardian Unlimited]

In the meantime, I’m focused on creating new visuals with Apple’s Quartz Composer (still learning that) and Jitter 1.5. Because really, what is music without something to trip out to?

While we’re on the subject of visualizers, Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox 360 console will be preloaded with a trippy music visualizer game. Unlike the iTunes visualizer, it’ll be completely interactive, too. Inspired by the 1984 game Psychedelia, Neon is a visualizer for the year 2005. Check out the interview with creator Jeff Minter of UK developer LlamaSoft. (Betcha they’re Python fans.) Via Joystiq. This fits with Microsoft’s strategy of making the Xbox 360 a music hub, as reported here previously (see that link for what composers think of the new console).

New visualizers won’t just be trippier: they’ll be able to take advantage of new physics models. Joystiq also has the scoop on a new SDK for developing real-world physics, and Chris points out some slick PlayStation 3 demos involving water. 3D music creation interfaces? Wild new music games and visualizers? You bet.