Via Gamesindustry

In recent years, Phil Harrison has not only been promoted within Sony to the point where he runs the firm's worldwide network of development studios, he has also become the de facto face of the company at industry events around the globe.

Despite his new-found high profile, however, Harrison remains a software man - so when we sat down with him for a brief chat at E3 this week in the wake of the firm's announcements, the company's hardware and software strategies were definitely top of the agenda, but its hugely controversial pricing announcement was not.

We hope to bring you more coverage of Sony's plans - and the reaction to them - in the coming days - in the meanwhile, we hope you enjoy these insights from the man in charge of what may be the most crucial component of all in the firm's bid to retain its market leadership in the next generation; the software.

GamesIndustry.biz: All three companies laid their cards on the table earlier this week - from your perspective, what do you make of the three conferences and the reaction to them so far?

Phil Harrison: Sadly, I haven't actually had a chance to watch the other two conferences, but I've heard enough reports. I think that if we think the industry or the future of the business is defined by this week of press conferences... Then, we're very much mistaken. I think it's going to be defined by what the consumer thinks and what the industry thinks, and what the game developers think. It's not just about the press conferences.

I think the pieces of the PlayStation 3 puzzle are now fully revealed. Obviously we did the hardware last year, this year it's confirming or re-asserting certain elements of it - obviously, people know about Blu-Ray, but confirming that every machine has a hard disc drive in it, I think, was an important step. Confirming that we've got a new controller strategy was an important step, and showing lots of games was an important step. So, those were the main take-outs, and I think that as far as that was concerned, we achieved our objectives.

Your strategy and Microsoft's strategy are very divergent, in that Microsoft is offering consumers a choice - whether to have HD-DVD or not, whether to have a hard drive or not - while you're putting everything into a very expensive box and saying that they take all or nothing. Why that direction? Why not have a system where people who don't want to pay that premium for Blu-Ray don't have to?

Leaving aside the movie debate about Blu-Ray and HD-DVD, purely from a game design point of view and a game production point of view, we have to have Blu-Ray. DVD is just not big enough; DVD9 is nowhere near big enough for the kind of games, the richness that we're going to be putting in the games, the variety, the detail, you name it.

So, we had to adopt Blu-Ray primarily as a game format. The second benefit of it is that it becomes a video format as well. Putting it all in one box, as you say, is also down to the fact that a hard disc drive is necessary to create a totally integrated network platform. We want every consumer to be able to download and install content on their hard disc drive. If you want to put all your music on your hard disc drive, you'll probably go for the 60GB version. If you're a complete music fan and video fan, and you want to have huge amounts of digital content, then you can upgrade to whatever size of drive you like. You can put any in that you like - it is a computer, after all.

So that hard drive is a standard PC drive?

ATA, bog standard, yeah.

You're not going to be selling Sony drive upgrades?

We've got no plan to. We may offer something, but we have no plan to at the moment.

Talking about software - how many titles do you actually have on the show floor this week? I think we counted a dozen...

I think it's fifteen playable games. At the conference, we had three titles from Japan - GT HD, Eye of Judgement and Genji 2, we had three from Europe - Singstar, Heavenly Sword and F1, and two from the US - Warhawk and Resistance. That was pretty evenly split.

The controller. You showed off the boomerang, then said it was a prototype, and now you've come back and done the Dual Shock but with a twist - no pun intended. How long have you known that this was the plan?

[The motion sensing controller] has been thought about since about 1994, but in reality, you can't make some of the ideas that we have because the technology is not available in sufficient quantity or at a low enough price, and you kind of have to wait for certain things to converge. We had the concept of PlayStation Portable for many years before we could actually deliver it at a price and at a standard that was acceptable.

The controller is obviously a surprise to the industry. We've been thinking about it for a while, but it's a relatively recent addition to the format. We didn't show it last year, because we weren't ready to. The boomerang, as you call it, was very clearly designed as a design concept, and was never intended to be the final controller, despite what everybody said about it.

I think we certainly saw the strength ...

Via Gamesindustry

Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto has stressed the importance of forging a link between the DS handheld and the new Wii console, stating that the technology for interconnectivity is already in place.

Speaking to gaming blog Kotaku, the legendary games designer said that the option for consumers to connect the two 'disruptive technology' platforms has already been implemented in the Wii console - but that Nintendo has yet to cement plans with regard to how best to utilise it.

Using the DS touch-screen and microphone input to affect Wii gameplay as well as downloading content from Wii to be edited and then uploaded back to the console from the DS were just a couple of the suggestions presented, but no firm announcements have been made thus far.

Miyamoto stated that the connectivity functions for the two devices would likely be available by the time the Wii launches during the fourth quarter of the year, or very soon afterwards.

Central to Nintendo's next-gen strategy is the expansion of the gaming audience and a move away from 'core gamers' to a broader demographic, who will want to play the Wii regardless of age, gender and previous experience of videogames.

Software innovations aside, the company believes that its revolutionary motion-sensing controller is key to breaking down the barriers and encouraging a new, non-gaming audience to join in.

Miyamoto hopes to further encourage this expansion of the consumer audience by offering a personal attachment to the new controller. Effectively, each person in the household could have their own controller, which is tied to their own gaming preferences and will ensure that the Wii automatically customises the look or settings of various games, depending on which controller is used to switch the machine on or join a new game.

Whilst Microsoft already offers a personalised gamertag and user profile for it's Xbox 360 console (with similar plans announced for the PS3), Nintendo appears to be taking the idea a step further, offering a personalised controller that enables the console to instantly recognise personal preferences and game settings - a move which could prove to be exceptionally useful in helping the company achieve its ambitions in the next-gen market. ...

Via Gamesindustry:

Neil Thompson, head of Xbox for Northern and Eastern Europe, has dismissed claims made by author Dean Takahashi that Microsoft is currently developing a new handheld gaming system.

In his latest book, The Xbox 360 Uncloaked, Takahashi claims that half of the Xbox 360 hardware team is already hard at work on the new machine - which he says is due to be released half way through the next-gen console's lifespan.

But speaking to gadget website T3, Thompson said: "We’re not even thinking about that at the moment. Handhelds, in the way you would think about a handheld like a PSP? No."

Thompson went on to say that the company plans to focus instead on improving its foothold in the mobile gaming market, which he believes offers "a really good opportunity to capitalise on the hundreds of millions of handsets that are out there, and give people a chance to connect that with other entertainment experiences." ...

Metafox posted at dcemulation.com

Just a reminder that the contest ends at the end of this month.

There's still plenty of time to enter. I'll accept entries all the way until midnight PST on the 31st.

Remember, you don't have to make a complete game - there's a minigame section of the contest as well.

For the full game contest you don't have to have a completely polished game - just a game that is near professional level. If you run out of time, but have a playable game that just lacks some spit and polish - submit it anyway - you still will have a good shot at winning.

...

Via Gamespot

Though it was only a moderate success when it hit theaters in 1995, Heat has developed a devout cult following. Its deep characters, clockwork-like plot, and intense violence have earned director Michael Mann's three-hour-long crime epic many fans, more than a few of which were game developers. Indeed, the ultra-difficult bank robbery level of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City was a direct homage to the film, featuring copies of the hockey-mask-and-coverall disguises worn in the beginning of Heat and recreating its violent street-shootout denouement.

Now, it appears Heat will be getting a more direct game adaptation. Today, the hybrid entertainment company Titan Productions announced that it has reached a deal with Regency Entertainment, the Hollywood production company that owns the rights to Heat, to publish a game based on the film for "next-generation consoles" in 2007.

According to Titan Productions, Mann is in talks with Gearbox to oversee the game's development. There's also a good chance that many of the movies' stars will be lending their voices and likenesses to the game. Titan claims it is in "advanced stages with representatives for Robert De Niro, Al Pacino and Val Kilmer to be part of the video game sequel."

According to a statement by Titan, Heat: The Game will be a prequel or sequel to the film. If the game is a sequel, De Niro's character, Neil McCauley, will appear in flashback, perhaps in the form of training missions. If Pacino declines to get on board, it would be a sequel which would have a new detective chasing down McCauley's crew.

Though the prospect of a Heat game elicited whoops of delight inside the GameSpot E3 booth, Titan's record has been more than a little spotty. Clive Barker's Demonik, its next-gen game collaboration with Terminal Reality, was canceled in February. Little has been heard about its other movie-game crossover projects, such as Guillermo del Toro's Sundown and John Carpenter's Psychopath, since they were announced.

However, unlike other Titan projects, the Heat game has a well-respected studio on board--Gearbox Software, developer of Brothers in Arms and the PC port of Halo. "There is something about this concept that I call 'hardcore heist' that has never really been done well in a video game, yet everyone on the planet has thought about robbing a bank or something at one time or another," Gearbox Software president Randy Pitchford said in a statement. "Heat pretty much defined what hardcore heist means and it gives us a narrative mechanism to consider both sides." ...

Via Engadget

When we found out Shigeru Miyamoto wanted to give us a second round to ask him about the latest in the world of Nintendo here at E3, I found that same inner-child fanboy Peter reminisced about when we last interviewed him start to emerge. Suddenly I wanted to play all those games I grew up on again, but we had to know how he thinks the Wii is going to change the future of gaming. Vlad Cole and I somehow managed to pull ourselves together long enough to ask him about whether the sedentary gaming world is ready for full-body frenetic gameplay, how he's influencing the next generation of Nintendo games and game designers, the media agendas of the 360 and PlayStation 3, and even a little on HD gaming.

So, thank you very much for meeting with us, I really appreciate it. The Wii represents a major step forward for Nintendo in terms of functionality and capabilities. One of the things we're really curious to know is what Wii is going to enable you as a game maker to create that you've never been able to create before.

Well, I think the greatest strength of the Wii is that it allows you to create games that are very intuitive and very easy to pick up and play, such that people who've never played a video game before can easily pick up the controller and start playing. And that's kind of the concept behind the games like Tennis and Golf and Baseball and the Wii Sports Series, and these are really kind of the very basic games that we're looking at doing.

And then of course thinking about the types of games that the gamers have come to know and play over the years, the unique features of the Wii controller, such as the direct pointing device on the Wii Remote will allow gamers to now more directly interact with the types of game screens that they've seen, where they're pointing directly at a place on screen to interact with it.

Is there a type of game that even now you still can't or for whatever reason create?

I can't think of any off the top of my head. I don't really have any ideas that stew in my brain for long periods of time. I really just focus on what I'm working on at the moment.

The one thing that I have been thinking about for a long time is this problem we've had with 3D games, where as we've been making 3D games, 3D worlds and the control schemes have becomes so complicated. People who don't play games can't easily jump into those interactive worlds and experience them. And I think we've been able to overcome some of that difficulty with the functionality of the Wii controller. So now as we go forward and create software I have to continue to think of ideas of how to take advantage of that to overcome that barrier.

When it comes to designing these games, specifically with regard to the Wii controller, what kind of role is it that you play now within Nintendo, and how do you oversee the process of game design?

Well, I am overseeing a large number of games at one time. But at the same time, out of that large number I always try to choose maybe two or three games that I focus on, and that I try to involve myself directly in.

So then that would beg the question, which games specifically bear your mark? Which two or three of the most recent spate of games show your signature on them?

Well, obviously I have to kind of take responsibility for Super Mario Galaxy, and Zelda: Twilight Princess, as those are two of my most important franchises, so I'm always involved in any new development on those. On top of that I'm also working on the Wii Sports games. We have a number of very young directors, about six of them, each of whom is responsible for one of these sports games. So they're all working underneath me, and I'm giving them quite a bit of direction as well.

Being that there's some delegation of game design to other people, what is it that you think is really the hallmark of your contribution to these games?

Well, game development takes a very long period of time to complete. And over that period of time you experience any number of elements that you devote a lot of time to -- and maybe you make some mistakes on and you have to go back and redo. So I think my biggest contribution is to be able to step in and try to pinpoint where those types of errors might occur before a lot of work is done on them; to keep that type of effort at a minimum. It would be best have those young directors kind of experience those mistakes for themselves and learn from them, but at the same time, in the idea of trying to keep the development time lines down it's also important for me to step in and kind of point them out, and help them overcome those mistakes.

And then on top of that, I think something else that's very important is bringing all those directors together and communicating with them in a group, so that the other directors can also learn from the experiences that everyone else has had, and learn from the mistakes that they have made.

I would love to have a specific example of a mistake that was corrected by you; you stepped in and you made some changes, and you taught others what not to do in that situation. Can you think of a good example?

This is a kind of a slightly different case then what I just explained, but one example I can ...

Via CVG

Still beaming (get it?!... *sigh*) from the critical and consumer acclaim bestowed upon Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Bethesda has announced its new project for the Xbox 360 - a real-time strategy game based on the Star Trek licence, entitled Star Trek: Legacy.

Enlisted as an Admiral (bloody hell that was a quick rise up the ranks) you must command a fleet of war ships through a series of escalating real time battles, which offer all the recognisable starships from the numerous incarnations of the television series - including the tribble infested Enterprise of the Kirk and Spock era, right the way through to the battle hardened version of Jean-Luc Picard's reign. But for the rebel in you, there is relief away from the rules and regulations of the Federation, with the chance to pilot the powerful fleets of Klingon, Romulan, and Borg races too.

Developed by Mad Doc Software, creator of Star Trek Armada II, the game is due out this September for PC and Xbox 360, but won't be the last title we see from the Star Trek universe, due to Bethesda acquiring the rights from CBS Consumer Products to publish a series of games across all gaming consoles, an agreement that has the company looking forward to the challenge ahead...

"Being able to work with the entire universe of this beloved series is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us," said Todd Vaughn, vice president of development for Bethesda Softworks. "We have some great ideas about where we want to go with this license and having the exclusive right to develop and publish Star Trek games across all platforms ensures that every Star Trek game will be a quality game worthy of its name."

The game will also boast a full multiplayer campaign, from small-scale engagements to all-out war involving multiple star systems. Matchmaking, stat tracking, and player rankings on Xbox Live are set to be included, so you can check your progression from Kirk to a Kahn (or visa versa) easily. ...

Via CVG

After months and months of agonized waiting, we've finally managed to get our hands around Nintendo's hugely unconventional new controller for its next-gen console, Wii - and OMFGetcetc, it's a brilliant, phenomenal bit of kit. Everything you've heard and hoped for is true - you ain't seen nothing quite like this before sunshine. We'll go through the ins and outs of the Wii-mote elsewhere and hop straight to those all important games. First up, the most accessible - and damn, if it's not the single most concentrated pile of immediate fun we've ever had in a game - Wii Sports.

You'll have seen this already if you were watching Nintendo's media event on Tuesday - it's the game Uncle Reggie, Mister Iwata and King Miyamoto challenged one lucky winner to, in the form of Wii Tennis. Also bundled in with Wii Sports - already confirmed as a launch game - you'll find Golf and Baseball. Nintendo's also suggesting there might be a couple of additions to the sports package - potentially Airplane, which is showing under the Wii Sports umbrella here at E3.

We've got some first hands-on impressions below, as well as a couple of screens snapped directly from the show floor. It's worth pointing out that Wii Sports is in no way indicative of the power of the console from a graphical perspective. They've all been designed to be simple, stylised and approachable. As with all the Wii games on display, everything ran at a constant 60 fps - and when you see the gorgeous Mario, Zelda and Metroid in action, you're going to be mighty impressed.

TENNIS


Undoubtedly the jewel in Wii Sports' crown is Tennis, which sees up to four players wielding the Wii remote in wholly intuitive racket stylee. Like all of the offerings in the package, it's a doddle to pick up and play, but it's incredibly basic as far as a sports game goes. Although you can perform all the usual tennis tricks like forehands, backhands and serves (by flicking the remote upward then volleying it as hard as you can), your onscreen representations will find their own way to the ball automatically, meaning you don't need to worry about positioning. Really, all you're tasked with is deciding how to hit the ball and how hard, with the remote detecting the speed of your swings.

Despite it's simplicity though, it's a brilliant piece of design as far as introducing the world to Nintendo's new philosophy goes - and it's incredible how unintrusive the Wii remote actually is, fitting snugly into your hand. Of all the game's we've played so far, this is the one most likely to convince you of Wii's brilliance, in the shortest amount of time. As far as longetivity goes, it's a bit questionable, but as a party game, it promises to be a ball.

GOLF


Admittedly we're less convinced by Golf and Baseball - both are even further simplified versions of the sports, without the thrill of the simultaneous multiplayer hijinx found in Tennis. It's hard to talk about Golf without pointing out that we're absolutely rubbish at it in the real world - so it probably speaks highly of the Wii remote's ability to replicate real-life activities when we say we were shit at Wii Golf too.

Having selected whether you're right or left handed, you're presented with a traditional behind-character view of the golf course. Next, unsurprisingly, you adopt your favourite golfing posture and swing away. Initially, you can take as many practice swings as you want - hold down the trigger or top button though and its the real deal. As you'd imagine, the remote senses your swing speed, effortlessly - and utterly intuitively - translating all that into how far the ball travels and where it ends up. Adjusting your intended path is a bit more old-skool though, achieved by pressing the d-pad either left or right.

From what we've seen, it's not the most sophisticated thing in the world and is probably best described as Monkey Golf with a fancy controller. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's probably got limited appeal.

BASEBALL


Same story here too - although it's worth pointing out that Nintendo's deliberately marketing its Wii Sports package as a mass-appeal arcade style diversion with sporting allusions, rather than anything resembling a sim.

You can probably guess what Baseball entails by now: Use the remote as if it's a bat and swing away. Again, simplifying matters hugely, the game measures the speed of your swing and converts it into distance on the screen - the further you thwack it across the field, the more likely you are to score a home run. There're no fancy complications or cut-scenes if you do though - it's simply a case of the onscreen HUD marking one of your ten innings with the appropriate icon and you're off again. Your longest strike and number of innings is recorded at the end of the game and that's it.

AIRPLANE


Finally, Airplane stands as the oddity in Nintendo's Wii Sports line-up. Although it's collected alongside Tennis, Baseball and Golf on the show floor, it doesn't ...

Via CVG

We're certainly hitting the high notes at this year's E3 on CVG, having just returned from the first reveal of Singstar on Sony's next-gen PS3.

We'll be uploading footage shortly for you to contemplate but Sony revealed during an impressive presentation that two brand new microphones will be released alongside the PS3 launch title and they'll look sleek, silver and slimline and feature increased sensitivity compared to the current model.

Even more intriguingly, one will come in a standard USB wired version but there'll also be a wireless Bluetooth model for full falsetto freedom.

As to what you'll be singing on the PS3, well it looks like that will be entirely up to you, with a new iTunes-style service giving you full control over your PS3 playlists and karaoke classic selections. This was demoed, with a song taking perhaps less than 30 seconds to come down the wires. And while Sony refused to give an absolute confirmation of pricing, they did say it would cost no more than a typical iTunes track, with a flat rate guaranteed across the board.

Various themed song packages may also be on offer on download, but once you've bought your SingStar package, don't expect further song packs or disks to be heading your way. Although this is yet to be fully confirmed, Sony's current thinking is that you'll buy all further songs through the download service.

We'll be warbling more Singstar goodness your way soon, including a movie of the presentation. ...