Sony's Harrison to keynote GDC

via gamespot

CMP Media, the organizers of the Game Developers Conference, today announced that Phil Harrison, president of worldwide studios at Sony Computer Entertainment, will give the opening keynote to this year's conference.

Harrison will give a lecture entitled "Game 3.0: Developing and Creating for the 3rd Age of Video Games." The talk will focus on "the entertainment, creative, and commercial opportunities presented by connected communities of players and developers."

GDC 2007 takes place March 5-9 at San Francisco's Moscone Center. Harrison's speech will take place on Wednesday, March 7 at 10:30 a.m. Earlier this week, GDC 07 announced that Nintendo's game guru Shigeru Miyamoto will present a keynote entitled "A Creative Vision" on Thursday, March 8.

Aren't we in the seventh generation? If so, what does he mean by "3rd Age"? A middle-earth reference?

Generally an Age is marked by some an achievement or transcendence from old to new.

The periods he may be referring to are:

Atari -> PS(or maybe SNES) = First Age
N64 -> PS2 = Second Age
PS3 -> Beyond = Third Age

Seems likely, since once those milestones were hit, there was no turning back and the subsequent consoles thereafter said milestone incorporated similar technology.

Of course this is just speculation.

To bad i live in the UK. Funny to watch this.