Late Night Consoling

The Game Developers' Conference Europe has been the source of several notable pieces of news regarding Sony's plans for both PS3 and PSP. Most of it is courtesy of SCEE VP Phil Harrison, by way of GamesIndustry.biz. Here it comes:

Harrison believes that the two-tier Xbox pricing structure will "create confusion" among consumers, asking "Are there two versions of the Xbox 360 that people want to buy? I don't know." When pressed as to whether Sony might use a similar strategy, Harrison unsurprisingly answered that such a scenario is "unlikely", though he seemed to stop short of setting the claim in stone.

The VP also touched on PS3's online plans. Though he again was reluctant to give hard explanations this early, it sounds as though Sony's PS3 online structure will, fundamentally at least, be similar to that of the PS2. Though he notes that "Microsoft has done a lot of things right" (presumably referring to Xbox Live), he stressed that Sony's service will be a "more open platform." He explains that Sony is "happy for other publishers to form their own commercial relationships directly with the consumer. ... We want other companies to see the PS3 as a platform that they can exploit for their content, services and communities."

PSP will ship in Europe with the Version 2 firmware, presumably to the consternation of homebrew enthusiasts who want a PSP but have held off on importing. Harrison also claims that he is aware of gamers who have expressed frustration with the PSP's lackluster games library, comparing the situation to the PS2: "Remember we launched PS2 with Fantatvision [sic]", he notes. Harrison expects better software to come.

When asked about Wipeout Pure's downloadable content, Harrison revealed that future downloadable content for PSP will come in the form of paid downloads, starting next year. However, the VP noted that if users manage to lose the data it can be downloaded again without repurchasing it.

The idea of episodic content has been tossed around a lot lately in the games industry, to varying levels of success, and Harrison too mentioned his interest on the subject. He'd like to see games "more like soap operas" in terms of "similar, reliable experiences in a friendly way to a set of characters and stories that change dynamically over time." He's going for a "water cooler experience" type of reaction to such games. Though it wasn't clear whether it's actually any part of Sony's strategy for PS2, PS3, or PSP, Harrison does expect it to become more common in the industry at large over the next five years.

Despite his recent comments criticizing the DS console as "a gimmick" and Nintendo's portable strategy as "an irrelevance", Harrison had good things to say about Nintendogs (DS). "I'm very admiring of what Nintendo have done with that game," he said. "I would love for us to go and create that kind of immersion for a game on the PSP."

Nothing new on the pricing front, with Harrison saying it's still too early for anything official. "I'm sure Ken will continue to be enigmatic about that," he remarked.

Sony is singing the praises of its proprietary UMD format, claiming that the company has sold 8.2 million UMD movies for its PSP console. This is particularly notable when one realizes that Sony is also claiming to have sold 9 million PSP games. In fact, the publisher expects that eventually movies will make up over 60% of all UMD-based content sold--including games. Assumedly, the success is primarily due to the North American market, since PSP has not yet launched in Europe and recent survey data indicates that Japanese PSP owners have little interest in watching UMD movies.

GameGeekNews is reporting that, in Japan, PS3 software will cost the equivalent of $70-$80, which is significantly higher than the $60 most of us have been bracing for. However, 1UP chimes in to remind everybody that PS2 games in Japan are not much cheaper than that now, so in all likelihood we're not going to see much software for Sony's new system break the $60 barrier outside of Japan.

GameSpot is reporting on some Xbox Live 2.0 bundles being offered by GameStop.com and EBGames.com. As we already knew, all Xbox 360 consoles will include a free Xbox Live Silver membership, although Silver only allows access to the Xbox Live Marketplace, not to actual multiplayer gaming. A montly membership to Gold will run $7.99/month, as compared to the current Live subscription rate of $5.99/month. It seems a slightly odd move, given Microsoft's assurance that current subscriptions will transfer over. So, if you plan on playing on Live, it might be a good idea to stock up on the current 12 month subscription cards before 360 ships...

Gaming news site Joystiq has received what is allegedly a Q&A being presented to retailers, containing Microsoft's official stances on Xbox 360 issues that might be unclear to customers. The material was delivered by "an anonymous tipster", so there's no guarantee as to its authenticity, though most of the answers seem reasonable enough to be real.

Most of the explanations are what we've been hearing for weeks, but there are a few noteworthy bits. For one thing, it indicates that a hard drive is required for backwards compatibility. We already knew that, but this is crystal clear wording. However, there is no mention of the previously suggested inclusion of forward-compatibility code in some late-to-the-table Xbox games. Most interesting is the claim that it is Microsoft's "goal to make all titles backward compatible"--at least, eventually. The material notes that "the top-selling titles" will be treated first, of course. It's good to see the publisher trying to support the rest of their games library, though it is perhaps slightly hard to believe that every single Xbox game will at some point play on Xbox 360.

The BBC talks with several gaming addicts from around the world about China's new gaming policies.

Eurogamer has a brief chat with Ubisoft's Michel Ancel (King Kong, Beyond Good & Evil).

GameSpot continues their Designer Diary high with #2 for Burnout Revenge (PS2, Xbox, X360).

1UP has an article compiling all the fake Revolution controller Photoshoppings that have surfaced, if for some reason there's one you're looking for.