Harrison: User-Created Content Key To PS3 Strategy

In the last part of an interview reprinted on 'semi-official' Sony blog ThreeSpeech, Sony Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison has said that user-created content will take a large and central role for the overall PS3 strategy, but in some seemingly unique ways. When asked about the company's strategy for user created content in a UK Official PlayStation Magazine interview reprinted on ThreeSpeech, Harrison responded that it was one of the features he was most excited about, but warned, "don’t think about it in terms of [making] maps, think of it in terms of behaviours, environments, physics, rules... all the tools that you could want, but in a very consumer friendly way.” When followed-up on the input devices consumers might use for the new content, be it mouse and keyboard or simply through the Sixaxis controller, Harrison added, "The vast majority of the experience could be done with the pad, but for the small investment of plugging in a USB mouse there might be a second level, or a deeper level of finesse, that you could get in terms of pixel manipulation and paint programs or fine tuning things." "Different users will have different wants," he continued, "some will go all the way down to buying the special software that allows them to create their super levels. 95% of users are happy to be the consumer, but 5% are incredibly fanatical about creating a huge amount of content and the whole community benefits from it, and that is a really interesting trend." Finally ,and revealing inspiration from a perhaps unexpected source, Harrison then went on to say, "Look at Second Life. Everything about the experience is user-created content. That is a very, very powerful metaphor for where we’re going. We’ve got two things in development. One in this building and one with an external developer that, when we do share them with you, I think you’re going to go ‘Ah now I know what he was talking about.'"