Interviews// Phil Harrison: President, Sony Worldwide Studios
The flaw in the argument
Companies:
SCEE Sony
People: Phil Harrison
Games: MotorStorm (PS3) Gran Turismo HD Concept (PS3) Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) Fantavision (PS2)
People: Phil Harrison
Games: MotorStorm (PS3) Gran Turismo HD Concept (PS3) Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) Fantavision (PS2)
In time-honoured fashion, we’d like to bring the full transcript of our chat with Harrison.
SPOnG: What is Sony’s thinking behind leaving the Emotion Engine off the motherboards of PAL PS3s?
PH: Our thinking involves being able to bring the latest hardware specification of the PS3 to Europe, although that does mean an initial slight reduction in the number of PS2 components. But it’s important to put that into context: there will still be thousands of PlayStation and PlayStation 2 titles playable on the PS3 at launch. It’s very easy to over-react. We’re working to introduce a resource on the Web to detail which titles will have backwards compatibility. And as we make firmware upgrades, we will be able to add to that list.
SPOnG: Can you give us a ballpark figure for the number of PS2 titles which will be playable at launch on the PS3?
PH: The situation is changing every day, but on March 23, we expect the list to include over 1,000 PS2 titles.
SPOnG: And presumably, you will be concentrating on the big titles?
PH: We can’t give any information about specific titles but, clearly, that would be our policy.
SPOnG: It has been suggested that reducing the components on the PS3’s motherboard would pave the way for a reduction in its price to come about more quickly. Is that a fair analysis?
PH: Price reductions are something that we wouldn’t comment on specifically. But you know the business model very well – we strive to get the cost of manufacturing down as soon as possible, and as soon as we can pass cost savings onto the consumers, we will.
SPOnG: Just how important is backwards-compatibility?
PH: I think the reasons why people buy PS3s are the new games that it offers, and the HD content experiences provided by games and movies, the opportunity to access the PlayStation Network, and titles like MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man – leading-edge examples of what next-generation games are all about.
SPOnG: Is it true that Sony is consciously diverting its efforts from hardware towards in-house development?
PH: Moving resources towards in-house development is absolutely the strategy. When we launched the PlayStation, it had no games developed by ourselves. When we launched the PS2, it had one game developed internally: Fantavision. Beautiful game though it was, it was no game to sell a platform on.
But when the PS3 launches, it will have more exclusive, high-quality games from our own studios than we’ve ever done before. There are the likes of MotorStorm and Resistance: Fall of Man, plus Gran Turismo HD Concept, which is available for free download. flow launched in the US last week, and it has become the number one-selling title on the PlayStation Network. And there are so many things coming.
SPOnG: The flaw in the argument that removing the Emotion Engine from PAL PS3s is that you’ve manufactured over 100-million Emotion Engines. So, surely the Emotion Engine can’t possibly cost you more than a few pence to manufacture?
PH: If only that was the case.
SPOnG: Are you shifting capacity in your wafer fabs from making PS2 components to PS3 ones, then?
PH: It’s not as simple as that – we’re obviously continuing to make PS2s in huge volumes, so there’s no reduction in that. But the Emotion Engine that has previously gone into PS3s on sale elsewhere in the world is a custom component that we have now removed from the motherboard of PAL PS3s.
SPOnG: Thanks for your time, Phil.
Companies:
SCEE Sony
People: Phil Harrison
Games: MotorStorm (PS3) Gran Turismo HD Concept (PS3) Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) Fantavision (PS2)
People: Phil Harrison
Games: MotorStorm (PS3) Gran Turismo HD Concept (PS3) Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) Fantavision (PS2)
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Comments
ajmetz 1 Mar 2007 17:20
1/7
I still wonder if there'll be a gap on the motherboard, and you can take an old PS2, yank out the Emotion Engine and solder it into your PS3?
Though I doubt it....
I also wonder - how easy is it for games studios to make sure their new PS2 games are compatible with PS3 from the off? And how easy will it be for third parties to release any patches or firmware to enable their games to play on PS3? Are the publishers taking responsibility? Or is Sony the only one putting time and effort into making sure as many PS2 games work as possible?
And will the cheaper, revised PS3, crop up in America and Japan too eventually?
Though I doubt it....
I also wonder - how easy is it for games studios to make sure their new PS2 games are compatible with PS3 from the off? And how easy will it be for third parties to release any patches or firmware to enable their games to play on PS3? Are the publishers taking responsibility? Or is Sony the only one putting time and effort into making sure as many PS2 games work as possible?
And will the cheaper, revised PS3, crop up in America and Japan too eventually?
config 1 Mar 2007 18:48
2/7
I doubt it too, given that Harrison specifically states that the Emotion Engine embedded in v1 PS3s is a custom job (i.e., not the same as the stock PS2 chip)
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DoctorDee 2 Mar 2007 08:34
3/7
ajmetz wrote:
Or is Sony the only one putting time and effort into making sure as many PS2 games work as possible?
Pblishers won't be doing jack. There's no benefit to them. Sony will be improving the quality of the emulation (more exactly like PS2 = more games work) - the benefit to them is not to be despised by people whose favourite game doesn't work, not to be resented by everyone in Europe and not to be mocked by 360 owners who they've waived backwards compatibility in the face of.
[quorte]And will the cheaper, revised PS3, crop up in America and Japan too eventually?
As sure as eggs is eggs.
vault 13 4 Mar 2007 05:26
4/7
DoctorDee wrote:
Pblishers won't be doing jack. There's no benefit to them. Sony will be improving the quality of the emulation (more exactly like PS2 = more games work) - the benefit to them is not to be despised by people whose favourite game doesn't work, not to be resented by everyone in Europe and not to be mocked by 360 owners who they've waived backwards compatibility in the face of.
You kind of make it seem that Publishers are partly at fault. It's all on Sony. If they promise compatibility, then it's up to them to make it work.
DoctorDee 4 Mar 2007 10:02
5/7
vault 13 wrote:
You kind of make it seem that Publishers are partly at fault.
No, I don't.
The previous poster asked "Are the publishers taking responsibility?". I merely pointed out that they will not be doing anything. I made no comments about culpability.
But I stand behind my statement that the reason Publishers are doing nothing is because they can extract no commercial benefit from doing so. Even though they are not at "fault" - if they thought they could make money from fixing the situation, they would do what they could to do so. Simple corporate economics.
ajmetz 10 Mar 2007 15:49
6/7
But PS2 has the largest installed customer base of any of the consoles right now.
Therefore, publishers are still selling PS2 games, and still bringing out new PS2 games.
There may be no commercial benefit for making X-line games backwards compatible, but I believe there is commercial benefit from making current and new PS2 titles compatible.
Although I assume BC will be intiated by Sony themselves.
And hopefully God of War 2 is gonna be on that list.
Therefore, publishers are still selling PS2 games, and still bringing out new PS2 games.
There may be no commercial benefit for making X-line games backwards compatible, but I believe there is commercial benefit from making current and new PS2 titles compatible.
Although I assume BC will be intiated by Sony themselves.
And hopefully God of War 2 is gonna be on that list.
OptimusP 11 Mar 2007 20:43
7/7
You just answered your own statement by saying the PS2 has such a large install base...why should third parties do anything on making their new PS2-games BC compatable if the PS3 user base isn't even 10% of the PS2's one.
A better question should be, can't you sue companies for dropping out a feature like that all of the sudden while beforehand bragging about having that feature in the first place?
A better question should be, can't you sue companies for dropping out a feature like that all of the sudden while beforehand bragging about having that feature in the first place?