GDCE: 'Feature: Keynote Q&A on the Future of Games'

In our further coverage of the GDC Europe conference, here is the only in-depth, completely comprehensive discussion of the fascinating GDCE keynote from SCEE's executive vice president Phil Harrison. This particularly frank talk goes into detail particularly about the PlayStation 3 - its makeup, the Cell chip, and as well as Sony's attitude toward development and on-line capability. In this extract, Harrison is discussing Sony's attitude to its network services for PS3: "...when challenged, Harrison agreed: "Microsoft has done a lot of things right in this space", and suggested that Xbox Live was "certainly a good model for a lot of the consumer experiences we're doing on PlayStation 3." Although not giving a precise example of something that's planned, he also pointed out that: "maybe there's a button on your TiVo which will spit content onto your PSP", and hinted that this might be the type of interoperability that next-generation Sony consoles might help with. However, this attitude came in for a little more buffeting in the public Q&A session at the end of the keynote, in which Harrison further reinforced that, technically, "More people have played online on PS2 than a Microsoft format", but admitted "But we did not provide the same experience as they did." He did state again, strongly, that the PlayStation 3 will feature commerce, communications, community features, and media exchange functionality. Some will be free, some will be premium-driven by game services and publishers themselves, but Harrison commented: "We want to provide an open platform as much as possible", and in a notable reference to Microsoft: "Distinct from our competitors, we are happy for publishers to make their own financial agreements directly with consumers."" You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).