Making financial commitment to new titles is easier with 64m users, says Ryan

Sony Computer Entertainment

Sony Computer Entertainment is a Japanese videogame company specialising in a variety of areas in the...

www.playstation.com

Sony Computer Entertainment Europe

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Sony has acknowledged that Nintendo's forthcoming console the Wii U may turn the heads of technology consumers, but it's confident a portfolio of new brands can keep audiences focused on the PlayStation 3.
While many publishers are relying on established franchises and sequels to tread water during the final years of the current generation of consoles, Sony is still investing in brand new IP, evidenced by Naughty Dog's The Last of Us and Quantic Dream's Beyond: Two Souls taking centre stage at E3 last week.
"It becomes economically easier if you've got an installed base of 64 million," said Sony Europe boss Jim Ryan, of creating new intellectual property six years after its console was first released. "Making that financial commitment to this sort of thing is a lot easier than if you've got 6 million."
"It becomes economically easier if you've got an installed base of 64 million"
Jim Ryan

Nintendo tried to dominate last week's E3 with software reveals and more details of the Wii U to a mixed response from attendees. And with price and release details still up in the air for the new console, Sony doesn't yet feel threatened by the new hardware.
"It's obviously a potential risk but we feel really good about our content," said Ryan. "Obviously, it comes down to content. There are people who buy gadgets for the sake of the gadget, but that's pretty niche. We feel good about our line-up that we showed at E3. We're very excited about publishing it. We've got 30 million (hardware sales target) for this year, it's a big number but we've got the tools to go out and deliver that."
While Sony's PlayStation 3 portfolio looked strong, its PlayStation Vita showing was muted during the conference, with only a number of hardware bundles and a brief mention of a new Call of Duty title for release this year - although only a logo and no footage of the title were shown.
"The dating of Call of Duty isn't something I would call a little announcement," offered Ryan. "Yes, there's wasn't any demonstration of the game but having that franchise on the platform before Christmas is a huge bit of news. Obviously Activision is the publisher of the game so what can be shown is down to them but having that, Assassin's Creed, FIFA and LittleBigPlanet, those four blockbuster IPs on the platform ahead of Christmas makes us feel pretty confident," he added.
The Vita handheld has been criticised for a lack of new releases, with the quiet showing during E3 adding fuel to critics who say Sony is neglecting the console so shortly after release. But Ryan insisted that the console will deliver the content demanded from early adopters, and there is no change to Sony's roadmap for the machine.
"Yes, there's wasn't any demonstration of the game but having that franchise on the platform before Christmas is a huge bit of news"
Sony's Jim Ryan on Call of Duty Vita

"Over the balance of this year we see 60 new titles coming to the platform. There is breadth and depth, so I think anyone who has invested in the platform should feel reassured by that.
"In terms of content that's going to release in the rest of 2012 there's no change. Obviously just the time lines for development would mean that if we had made any decisions about changing strategy it would be next year or the year after that it would reflect itself in what's available in the market.
"There is, as with all platforms, the people that you sell to in the first year aren't the people that you sell to in year's five or six, that's the nature of the beast. Have we abruptly changed course in 2012? Absolutely not," he said.

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/article...aith-in-new-ip

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UK games trade body UKIE will launch a massive media campaign to promote the new PEGI age ratings system before it becomes enforceable in July.
As part of this, the organisation will be relaunching the AskAboutGames.com website, which will once again provide parents with information on video games, the industry and the PEGI ratings.
UKIE has enlisted family gaming expert Andy Robertson (known for Family Gamer TV and Geek Dad) to run the website.
"Working with UKIE on AskAboutGames.com and the Control.Collaborate.Create campaign is an excellent opportunity to broaden how video games are perceived," said Robertson.
"Through videos, blogs and reviews AskAboutGames will engage families of all shapes and sizes with information and tools to better understand and get more from the games they play."
Meanwhile the main campaign has been entitled Control.Collaborate.Create, and will run from July to December.
Control refers to educating parents about how they can check what games their children are playing, with the help of PEGI ratings when purchasing and the parental controls built-in to various consoles.
Collaborate will encourage parents to engage with and understand the games their children are playing, in the hopes of dispelling certain myths.
Create messages will promote video games as a creative and beneficial activity for people of all ages.
A video will be circulated to the national and parenting press and bloggers, raising awareness of what the industry does to promote responsible gaming.
Meanwhile, a competition will run to find the UK's "most collaborative and creative game-playing families", who will become Family Ambassadors for the campaign. This kicks off at Games Britannia Festival in July, and prizes include personalised games characters created by a top UK developer.
UKIE CEO Dr. Jo Twist said: "We know games are played by more and more people every day but there continue to be myths about them and it can be confusing for parents to know what games their children should be playing and how they should be playing them.
"That's why UKIE is creating the national Control.Collaborate.Create campaign and relaunching the AskAboutGames website, to promote tools like PEGI and to encourage people to have honest and open conversations about games, and how they can be enjoyed responsibly as part of our everyday entertainment experience."

http://www.mcvuk.com/news/read/ukie-...-launch/097863 ...

Amazon UK have today gone out on a limb and put up a preorder price of £199 for the WiiU, the newest of Nintendo`s consoles that is due to be released before this Christmas, the price of £199 is much lower than other prices from shops like Shopto who put a price of an RRP of £279.99 only a few days ago.

Heres some details about the WiiU:

Discover a wealth of exciting new ways to enjoy home entertainment with Wii U, Nintendo's next home console. With a revolutionary new touch screen controller, precision motion controls, and full HD graphics, a whole new world of play styles and gaming possibilities is on the horizon. The time is coming to truly expand your idea about what a game console is - and can be. The system launches in 2012 and includes the new Wii U console and amazing new controller.

A New Wii Console Experience

According to Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, "Wii U redefines the structure of home entertainment by fundamentally changing how the TV, the game console and the Internet function and interact together", he continues, "The experience enabled by Wii U and its new controller takes players deeper into their games, while reaching out wider than ever before to be inviting to all kinds of gamers".
A new Wii console experience that fundamentally changes how the TV, game console and the Internet function and interact together.
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A unique new controller packed with advanced features.
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An exciting roster of new games and software available at launch, as well as backwards compatibility to all Wii games.
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Wii U combines motion-sensing gameplay with the ability to support full HD graphics. Each Wii U console will be paired with a new groundbreaking controller, with its 6.2-inch wide screen. Previously, video games played on home consoles have been confined to the TV and offered identical viewpoints to each player in a multiplayer environment. The Wii U controller enhances that experience with different viewpoints available in-game and in differing games/game situations. Also, watching TV and playing console games have been completely separate experiences. The new controller removes these boundaries, creating a more dynamic and fluid gaming and entertainment experience. Examples of this new functionality include:

Within Single Player Games:

• While in-game the new controller can display information on its screen that does not appear on the TV
• The information and viewpoint can also change in the new controller based on the orientation of its gyroscope

Within Multiplayer Games:

• The player using the new controller can have a different experience than those looking at the TV creating a wider variety of competitive and cooperative opportunities

The New Controller

In addition to its 6.2-inch screen, the new controller also features an accelerometer and a gyroscope, a rumble feature, an inward-facing camera, a microphone and speakers. Adding these features to the Classic Controller button scheme -- two analogue Circle Pads, +Control Pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons -- will enable a breadth of gameplay experiences while appealing to both casual and dedicated video game players. The Wii U system can also use up to four additional Wii Remote or Wii Remote Plus controllers and is backward compatible to all Wii games and all Wii accessories. The Wii console has sold more than 86 million units globally and greatly expanded the overall audience for video games. Wii U aims to expand that audience even further.

The Wii U Release Software Lineup

Wii U will feature a wide variety of exciting first and third party games and software at the time of system launch. Just a few of those players can expect include:

• New Super Mario Bros. Mii
• Darksiders II
• DiRT
• Aliens Colonial Marines
• Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Online
• Metro Last Light
• Tekken
• Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge (working title)
• And Nintendo Mii-based software yet to be confirmed

Technical Specifications

• Console Size - Approximately 1.8-inches tall, 6.8-inches wide and 10.5-inches long.
• New Controller - The new controller incorporates a 6.2-inch, 16:9 touch screen and traditional button controls, including two analogue circle pads. This combination removes the traditional barriers between games, players and the TV by creating a second window into the video game world. The rechargeable controller includes a power button, home button, +control pad, A/B/X/Y buttons, L/R buttons and ZL/ZR buttons. It includes a built-in accelerometer and gyroscope, rumble feature, camera, a microphone, stereo speakers, a sensor strip and a stylus.
• Other Controls - Up to four Wii Remote (or Wii Remote Plus) controllers can be connected at once. The new console supports all Wii controllers and input devices, including the Nunchuk controller, Classic Controller and Wii Balance Board.
• Media - A single self-loading media bay will play 12-centimetre proprietary high-density optical discs for the new console, as well as 12-centimetre

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In March, when Microsoft hired Phil Harrison, it was widely assumed that it was his time at Sony that got him the job. Harrison, however, tells us that while that was no doubt a factor, it was what he did in the years following his departure from Sony that were key.
Speaking to us at E3 last week, Harrison, once president of Sony's Worldwide Studios and now corporate vice-president of Microsoft's IEB division, bemoaned the "lazy" headlines - "Sony bloke joins Microsoft," as he puts it - that followed his appointment. Lazy, perhaps, but understandable; Harrison was a core member of the team that launched every console in the PlayStation family, and was widely perceived as the public face of PS3 in its early days.
Following his departure from Sony in 2007, Harrison joined Infogrames as president, and in 2010 he co-founded London Venture Partners, which invested in and advised UK mobile, social and cloud videogame companies. That made him the ideal man for Microsoft, whose E3 conference made it abundantly clear that the company's plans extend far beyond console gaming.
"[That experience] is incredibly relevant, and I believe it's one of the reasons why they wanted me to be part of the team," he told us. "I think there's been some lazy headline writing … [but] that's not really what it is.
"It's the four years I've spent in the middle, working with mobile companies, with social and cloud companies, investing in businesses, understanding new business and audience engagement models. That, I think, is giving me a toolbox to play with which is very relevant to the future of Microsoft and Xbox."
That future, of course, remains shrouded in secrecy, but Harrison admits that what drew him to Microsoft was "the strength of the vision. I signed an NDA, and was exposed to the future roadmap of the company going many years into the future and that, combined with the talent in the senior leadership team, was what convinced me to join."
That Microsoft has the financial means to do pretty much as it pleases, of course, was also a factor, and Harrison praises the "amazing resources" at his disposal. The immediate focus is onSmartGlass, the cross-platform, second-screen technology that will launch later this year. That, Harrison says, neatly encapsulates what drew him to Microsoft, and vice versa.
"It's a really complicated technical problem to solve - to get the integration seamlessly play and resume on different devices and move content from the screen to the touch device, and vice versa, via the cloud," he said. "I think Microsoft is one of a small handful of companies on the planet that has the capability to do it."

http://www.edge-online.com/news/why-...ined-microsoft ...

During a recent analyst Q&A session, company president Satoru Iwata responded to questions pertaining to Nintendo’s software strategy for Wii U. He first noted that what the company showed at this year’s E3 are launch and launch window games, defining this window as “titles that will be released early next year or not long after the hardware launch.”
But what about after launch? Apparently, plans are already in the works - and Iwata seems to suggest we’ll be seeing some new properties to complement the usual suspects. “We do have ideas of what kind of software we will be releasing after those two periods, and Mr. Miyamoto as well as I are both directly involved in the development process,” Iwata said. “Those include both our traditional franchises and of course new propositions as well.”
As for why the company is keeping mum on its future software prospects, Iwata explained that competition (and copy cats) play a huge role in that decision. “Because we are now in the era when similar proposals can be made by the others just one year after we introduced a brand-new hardware system proposal, please understand that we really can’t say much about what else we are planning,” he said.
I suppose we’ll just have to wait to find out what the company has up its sleeves… but it’s a safe bet that Retro’s secret project somehow factors in.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/06/1...oftware-lineup ...

n a recent analyst Q&A session, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata responded to questions about Wii U’s hardware, specifically how it fares from a power standpoint compared to systems like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. Iwata responded by reminding the audience that the Wii U’s hardware is still relatively new. As such, it's only natural that developers haven’t yet realized its full potential as they have with consoles they’ve been working with for more than half a decade.
“While existing platforms have engines that development teams have tuned and optimized for six to seven years after their respective launches, the Wii U is a new platform that has slightly different architecture and, since development teams have only just begun development on software for it, they are only at the halfway point to utilizing its full potential,” Iwata said.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/06/1...hardware-power ...

E3 2012 is behind us, but many PlayStation gamers have since been left with more questions than answers. Sure, we got to see the quirky brawler PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, the thrilling post-apocalyptic exploits of Joel and Ellie in The Last of Us and David Cage’s next masterpiece-in-the-making with Beyond: Two Souls. We even got a taste of Assassin’s Creed on PlayStation Vita and, unfortunately, a demo for Wonderbook that lasted approximately 20 times longer than it should have.
But there were also plenty of notable absences at Sony’s E3 press conference and subsequent showing on the floor of the LA Convention Center. Most of the games chronicled below have been announced, others alluded to in passing and one in particular that’s probably wishful thinking getting the best of us. Still, where are these games, and when can we expect to learn more about them?
Let’s jump in...
Agent and Grand Theft Auto V
We put these games together (instantly making our list 11 games long instead of 10) because they’re both from Rockstar. The PlayStation 3 exclusive Agent has clearly been turning the corner towards vaporware after years in development hell (it was announced in a cursory way in 2007 and outright revealed in 2009). However, Rockstar’s publisher, Take-Two, did announce about a year ago that the game is still in development. But is it really? Mum’s the word, though screenshots of the game surfaced late last summer. Consider this one in limbo, at the very least.Grand Theft Auto V, on the other hand, is very real and is likely coming within the next year to all applicable consoles (making it the only game on this list that’s not a PlayStation exclusive). As perhaps the most eagerly awaited game in the entire industry, its absence from Sony’s E3 conference perhaps isn’t all that notable, though it was nowhere to be seen anywhere at the show. Then again, that’s just how Rockstar typically rolls.
Call of Duty: Black Ops Declassified
Before E3, one of the safest bets seemed to be a reveal of whatever Call of Duty game would be coming to PlayStation Vita. Announced at E3 last year, Call of Duty could very well be the most important game dictating the long term success or failure of Sony’s handheld in the west. Indeed, Activision’s support could be pivotal. A true triple-A shooter could easily turn the tides in Vita’s favor. So Sony gave it a big showcase during its press conference, right?Wrong! Sony showed us a logo and gave us a title – it’s called Black Ops Declassified and it’s likely an entirely different game than what Activision will be releasing this fall on consoles and PC – but we saw nothing else. We saw no screenshots, no video, and we don’t even know who’s developing it. All we know is that the game is still slotted to come out later this year, and its utter absence from the show other than a passing mention means one thing and one thing only: it’s still not ready to be shown. And if you’re looking forward to this game, that should worry you.
Dragon’s Crown
The beautiful Vanillaware side-scroller Dragon’s Crown still exists and is still under development, but it was once in real danger. Initially slated to be published by UTV Ignition, Dragon’s Crown quickly entered a temporary state of limbo. An animator on the game later confirmed that it was still in development, however, and UTV Ignition laterhanded off the game to prolific Japanese publisher Atlus, allowing the company to save the day.
But Dragon’s Crown is no small and inconsequential title, and its absence from not necessarily Sony’s press conference but rather from the show floor at either Sony’s or Atlus’ booth indicates that it’s not quite ready for primetime. Atlus itself said the game would be more expensive than initially projected and will come out in 2013, but as it’s a PlayStation 3/Vita crossplay game, you’d think Sony would encourage Atlus to show it off more. But Dragon’s Crown was nowhere to be seen, making Vanillaware fans the world over quite sad.
Final Fantasy Versus XIII
Final Fantasy Versus XIII being cancelled isn’t necessarily an unsafe assumption to draw. At the very least, it’s stuck in a severe state of development hell, having now been in flux for over six years. It was originally shown off in 2006 and is still slated to be a PlayStation 3 exclusive, unlike its core companion, Final Fantasy XIII. But there’s very little reason – if any at all – to be excited about Final Fantasy Versus XIII, mostly because there’s scant evidence that it actually exists at all.Still, Square-Enix and Sony could have used Sony’s E3 press conference as a conduit to completely blow the game out. Prove to us it exists, show us gameplay and let us know when it’s coming. We’re getting precariously late in PlayStation 3’s lifecycle, and finally showing the game at TGS later this summer is probably the last chance Square-Enix is going to get (unless it wants to unveil and release the game rather unceremoniously). Either way, Final Fantasy Versus XIII is a clearly defined signal to other developers not to bite off more than they can chew.
Infamous 3 ...

The power of the IGN community strikes again. This time, the hero is reader Adam Latham, who has informed IGN PlayStation of an online survey he was asked to take that seems to hint at all sorts of special goodies on the horizon... or at least gauging how interested he’d be in these hypothetical products and offers.
For starters, Mr. Latham was asked about Gran Turismo on PlayStation Vita. “You told us earlier how interested you would be in buying the PS Vita version of the latest Gran Turismo game,” the survey reads. “Knowing that you might be able to get a discount on the PS3 version of the game, how interested are you now in the PS Vita version?”

Another question inquires about future PlayStation Plus offers, a topic we’ve covered in the past. The survey reads: “Imagine that as part of PlayStation Plus, every time you bought a game on either PS3 or PS Vita, you would be entitled to get the game on the other console absolutely free. So, if you bought Resistance on PS Vita, you could download Resistance on PS3 for free. Or if you got FIFA on PS3, you could download the PS Vita version for free.” The Resistance analogy is a little strange since there aren’t literal analogs on both the console and handheld like there is for FIFA, but it seems the focus is more on the idea than anything else.

http://uk.ign.com/articles/2012/06/1...-plus-features ...

Good news: Last month's unbelievable rumors that a Windows RT (Windows 8 ARM) licenses would cost OEMs $90-100 were off the mark — in actual fact, as confirmed by multiple vendors at Computex in Taiwan, the Windows RT license cost is only $80-95. At this point, we're not entirely sure what Microsoft's plan for Windows RT is. It would seem that Microsoft doesn't want to flood the markets with cheap Windows RT tablets. At this rate, though, we would expect the cheapest Windows RT tablets to hit the market at around $600, with top-spec models (if they exist) in the $800-900 range — well above Android tablets or the iPad. We can only assume that Microsoft doesn't want to go head-to-head with iOS and Android, instead trying to stake out a position at the top end of the market. Whether this is a good plan, with x86 tablets and their full 20-year PC ecosystem also vying for market share, remains to be seen."For comparison, sources say that Windows Phone 7 ran OEMs the equivalent of $30 per device, and Windows 7 for desktops around $50.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/1...h-as-windows-7
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