We’ve published several excerpts from our interview with Phil Harrison talking about the PS3 hardware - but what of the machine’s software? He’s the head of Sony’s worldwide studios, so he should know a thing or three about that…

One of the most interesting things about the next-gen consoles is that they all give the option of downloading games from the network, rather than going into a store and buying them. They’re not the same games as you’ll be buying in boxes - instead they’re small, cheap, and sometimes very innovative games that are limited in scope but often incredibly good fun.

Of course, since all the consoles offer this option, it would be easy for all of them to end up offering the same stuff - and the PlayStation Store, which is accessible through PS3, will almost certainly share some of its range of retro games and the likes with its rivals. However, Sony is planning to make sure that PlayStation Store also has lots of interesting, exclusive games - and Harrison is the man spearheading that initiative.

“We announced an initiative from a worldwide studios perspective at GDC this year,” he explains, “as a call to action to the development community to encourage them to create games specifically for us, that we would fund, that we would publish, in the online sense of the word, and distribute online.”

In other words, Sony is - right now - paying for developers to come up with cool new downloadable games.

“We’re developing about 40 products that fit that strategy right now,” Harrison continues. “We showed the very first one of those, called flOw, at the Tokyo Game Show for the first time. That got a really, really good response.”

“My strategy was to encourage developers to push the machine technically, creatively, artistically - to innovate in lots of different ways. But don’t be restricted by ghettoising games into a particular genre, or a particular display mechanic, because what we’ve seen on other systems tend to be retro 2D games, and we’re pushing the 3D capabilities of the PlayStation 3. Plus, the fact that every PS3 has a hard disc drive means that we’re not restricted by the size of the download, and that has a huge impact on the kind of game design that you can do.”

Indeed, developers do seem to be particularly excited about this idea - and we know for a fact that in the UK alone, studios devoted entirely to developing PS3 downloadable games and new divisions of existing studios focusing purely on PS3 downloadable games have been set up in recent months.

Harrison confirms that downloadable games are definitely starting to take hold. “We’re seeing an emerging strength in developers creating games specifically for downloadable content,” he says. “We’re seeing that as a really interesting way of stimulating creativity, experimentation… And it makes me feel as excited as about the games that we saw at the beginning of PS1, when there was a lot of really interesting innovation happening in the marketplace. I think we’ll see that on PlayStation 3 as well.”

Freaky stuff! Best in a while from PlayStation.

Here’s the second PS3 film. The last one was the boxing one, created to talk up the ‘real time physics’ capabilities of the PS3. The new one, which is a lot better (you can’t beat exploding household objects!), focuses on the high definition functionality.

Last time we posted an excerpt from our chat wit Sony’s worldwide studios boss Phil Harrison, he told us about his views on the controversial Blu-Ray drive. This time out, we asked him about another hotly debated topic - the new control pad, which looks much like a wireless version of the old DUAL SHOCK 2 pad, but actually lacks the very feature which gave that pad its name, namely the rumble motor. Instead, it packs in a system which can sense how you’re tilting and moving the pad - hence the new name, SIXAXIS.

That’s all very well, but players accustomed to the rumble functionality for nearly ten years were outraged when Sony dropped the feature. So has the company had second thoughts about the decision to ditch rumble?

“None whatsoever,” Harrison tells us firmly. “Not at all.”

Well, that’s confident. So what makes him so certain that the SIXAXIS pad is better than its predecessor, despite lacking the force feedback?

“I think that the next generation interfaces that can be created built on SIXAXIS motion sensitivity give tremendous gameplay benefits that far outweigh a reactive vibration function,” he explains. “The vibration function is the game sending a single channel of feedback to the player - six axis of input puts the player in control in a much richer, deeper way. So, game design can go in much more interesting directions as a result of that than from receiving a single input from the game itself.”

Fair enough, but there’s a rather obvious counter-point to that - couldn’t Sony have built both rumble and motion sensing into the same pad? A company called Immersion, which makes rumble and force feedback technology, fanned the flames of controversy by pointing out that contrary to mutterings from Sony, this is perfectly possible, technically - so why doesn’t the SIXAXIS pad make everyone happy by doing both things?

“I think the caveat to that statement always has to be based on the fact that when we make a pad, we’re making maybe 150, 200 million of them,” Harrison tells us. “So it has to be done at a price, and it has to be done at a volume that fits our production requirements. I think the decision that we’ve made to build in the SIXAXIS functionality, and Bluetooth wireless, and great battery life, and all the other functionality that comes with it, far outweighs the chatter that we’re getting on vibration. And, it’s incredibly light! Just pick it up!”

Whatever about the questions of cost and volume - granted, it’s nice to see a straight answer on that front, and we’d rather not see hugely expensive controllers on the system, but a lot of players might be happy to pay a premium to get rumble back - he’s certainly got a point about the weight of the pad. Picking it up, it’s feather-light - so much so that we’d be convinced that it was just a hollow plastic model, if we hadn’t been playing MotorStorm with it only minutes previously. It feels great to hold and play games with - but only individual gamers will be able to judge if they’re happy with the shake and rattle being sacrificed for the roll.

By Rob Fahey (Eurogamer.net)

It may not be reaching UK shops until March but, miracle of miracles, we’ve managed to get our hands on a PlayStation 3. Which, as you can imagine, caused a flurry of excitement. And this is what we’ve discovered about it so far.

Actually, first a note of caution. Our PS3, according to Sony, is an early version of the so-called debug machine. Indeed, it has a sticker on it that says: “Prototype”. Apparently, there is stuff missing from it which will be in the final machines, such as the ability to play Blu-ray movies and act as a repository for your music and photographs. Final debug machines, though, are a matter of weeks away, we’re told.

There’s no doubt that the PS3 is a classy piece of kit, with its piano-black finish and chrome strip (which denotes a PS3 with a 60Gb hard disk, so that will become a status symbol among PS3 owners). It’s also bloody heavy and pretty large - a function of having the power supply built in. Which becomes apparent when you plug it in using the kettle-lead. Our machine came with a controller, a network cable, a mini-USB to normal USB cable (for charging the controller) and a Component Video lead for attachment to a TV (alas, no HDMI cable).

Like the PS2, the PS3 has a power on/off rocker switch on the back. Next to the Blu-ray disk slot are two touch-sensitive buttons, one for ejecting disks and one for power on/off. When you initially plug the PS3 in, it has two LEDs next to the on-off touch-button which glow red; touch the button and one lights blue and the other green, which is pretty snazzy. Grab a disk, push it part-way into the slot and it’s sucked smoothly into the console’s innards.

Tap the new PlayStation button in the middle of the controller, and it communicates with the PS3; one of four numbered LEDs lights up to tell you its destination (the days of Multi-Taps are well and truly behind us). The controller itself is stunningly light, thanks to the absence of rumble hardware; the triggers and bumpers have been redesigned, too. The triggers, notably, are bigger, with much longer travel and analogue response.

And you’re in - to the PS3’s front-end, the Cross-Media Bar. Which looks exactly like the PSP’s front-end. After signing in (the PS3 supports multiple users), the menu choices you get are, from left to right: Users, Settings, Photo, Music, Video, Game, Network and Friends. Below Friends, on our prototype at least, is an icon marked: ‘Sign up for PlayStation Network’. Games are simply launched by selecting the game icon and hitting X.

And that’s what the PS3 is like. As soon as we get the chance to check out the PlayStation Network and start downloading music, photos and so on to the hard disk, we’ll report back. At the moment, we have preview versions of Resistance: Fall of Man (which is excellent - quite hard, with some very interesting weaponry), MotorStorm (very good, but only at the demo stage) and Genji (rather disappointing). But we’re working hard to get more games, and will soon bring you a round-up giving our impressions of early PS3 software. But one thing is for sure: the PS3 is over here, and preparing to make its presence felt.

Sony has just released two new PlayStation 3 commericals: “Play B3yond - Capacity” and “Play B3yond - Smarter”…

Perhaps the clearest message to emerge from the Tokyo Games Show was that the PlayStation 3’s online service will be an absolutely key element of the next-generation console. Ken Kutaragi acknowledged as much - the vast majority of his keynote speech was devoted to the changing 21^st-century world, in which everyone is connected to and fully conversant with the internet.

However the company might want to spin it, it hasn’t managed to embrace online gaming with any credibility previously - the insistence on not assuming overall control of online gaming (as Microsoft does with its subscription-based, and enormously popular Xbox Live) left the PS2 with a bitty, inconsistent online service. And previous Sony consoles have just been a bit out-of-synch with the online gaming revolution - the PS2 arrived about two years before affordable broadband reached these shores.

However, it can’t be ignored now, and Sony Worldwide Studios head Phil Harrison talked us through the experience of what the first proper PlayStation online gaming service will be like. He kicked off with: “As far as the online service is concerned, the key piece of the puzzle that I showed today is the web browser.” Happily, the PS3’s browser is very flash - able to open a number of sites and allow you to flick between them.

The initial interface for the PS3 online service will be the Storefront. Although Harrison said: “The interface for the Store is not yet final, so we didn’t show it today,” Polyphony Digital’s Kazunori Yamauchi did show a screen which pretty much resembles every website goods check-out you’ve ever seen, and it’s safe to presume that’s what the Storefront will look like - give or take a few design tweaks.

Harrision continues: “The basic framework and design is the same everywhere in the world. In that Store, you will find the premium content that you can buy and download, so that could be a full game or a component of an existing game. So there will be a simple click to download; it will verify your wallet and then will checkout and download straight to your hard disk. It could also be a free download of a video or a demo. That will, over time, expand to include PlayStation One games - in fact, from day one, we’ll have PlayStation One-emulation downloadable content, and that will extend in time to PlayStation 2. And as Ken said in his speech, he made a fairly clear statement about library emulation of other consoles as well.” To be precise, he mentioned the Sega Megadrive and the PC Engine.

Harrison provided further insight into the nature of the PS3 online service: “It’s all consolidated to one account: with a single login, a single sign-in, one account, one wallet. Once you’ve logged in - and by the way, once you’ve set up your account, login is automatic if you want it to be; you don’t have to type in your password every time - so if, say, you’re playing Resistance online, you’re actually playing off a set of dedicated Resistance servers. It’s up to the developer or publisher how they want to set those up.”

And the most radical difference to Xbox Live will be the existence of games - like Gran Turismo HD - which require the purchase of box-copy, but only make sense when combined with extra content bought from the Store. As Harrison explains, we shouldn’t expect to spend the time-honoured £40 or £50 on such games: “All of the multiplayer games that we’re planning at the moment are free to play, if you want the multiplayer functionality. We will be offering premium content for additional download for the vast majority of our games. With a game like Gran Turismo, after you’ve bought the game - at whatever price you might pay for it, bear that in mind - you can then expand that experience with additional content that’s downloaded. Some of which might be paid-for, some of which might be included in that purchase price, some of which might be on subscription - there are a number of different ways to slice and dice that.”

Which, not unnaturally, brings up the worry of ending up paying more than £50 for a full gaming experience. Faced with that allegation, Harrison countered thus: “That’s an incorrect understanding of the philosophy that Sony has. I believe that having an integrated, simple click-to-buy micro-transaction method is vital to the expansion of our industry. Think about a game where the disk is given away free of charge, and everything else comes via the network - that is where our direction is with the PS3.”

So, the PS3 will usher in a new world in which you’ll be able to buy, say, your favourite cars for use in Gran Turismo HD, yet ignore the ones you’re not interested in. The system will allow for episodic content, and you won’t have to pay a subscription. It really will be pay-to-play, and if what Harrison says proves to be correct, we should end up paying less for a more tailored online gaming experience.

Some interesting key announcements at this North American event on October 19.

PSP/PS3 connectivity was shown with a demonstration of accessing content from the PS3 hard drive on the PSP. The XMB icon for this, which looks like a PSP, is called Remote Play and sits under the Network icon.

They ran through demo of the PlayStation Store - how to set up and manage accounts and how to download content, which included a Motorstorm game demo and focus on two downloadable games - Blast Factor and Criminal Crackdown.

SOFTWARE LAUNCH LINE-UP
US Launch line up: 22 titles

First Party Titles –

Genji: Days of The Blade
NBA 07
Resistance: Fall Of Man

Third Party Titles -Blazing Angels (Ubisoft)
Call Of Duty 3 (Activision)
Fight Night: Round 3 (EA)
Elders Scroll 4: Oblivion (Bethesda)
F.E.A.R (Vivendi Universal Games)
Full Auto 2: Battlelines (SEGA)
Madden NFL 07 (EA)
Marvel Ultimate Alliance (Activision)
Mobile Suit Gundam: Crossfire (Bandai Namco)
NBA 2K7 (Take Two Interactive)
NBA Live 07 (EA)
Need For Speed: Carbon (EA)
NHL 2K7 (Take Two Interactive)
Ridge Racer 7 (Namco)
Sonic The Hedgehog (SEGA)
Tiger Woods 07 (EA)
Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vega (Ubisoft)
Tony Hawk Project 8 (Activision)
Untold Legends: Dark Kingdom (Sony Online Entertainment)

SOFTWARE DEMONSTRATIONS -

RESISTANCE: FALL OF MAN

Demoed new weapons ­ focus on Reapers (dual pistols with independent targeting).

40 player online play at one time ­ a first for online console gaming.

Mentioned multiple community features including six different online modes (competition lobby, buddy lists, stats etc).

Demonstrated multi-core processing power of Cell by pausing the game while using the Hedgehog weapon to show the multiple gun fire and trajectory calculations that were taking place at any one time.

GENJI: DAYS OF THE BLADE

Used the title to demonstrate the rich, high level of detail in textures, animation and sound made possible by the high storage capacity of Blu-ray Disc.

NBA 07

Used the title to demo the rich level of detail (e.g. beads of sweat running down players faces and reflections on the court) High-Definition gaming with the title running at 1080p and 60 frames per second.

LAIR

Used the title to demonstrate the motion sensing functionality of the controller.
Showed how the motion sensor could be used to control high precision movements when flying the Dragons such as standard flight, shooting forward and evasive moves.

Showed the seamless transition from air to ground combat and vice versa.

Also demonstrated the combination of motion sensing and analogue control in battle situations.

XMB ICONS AND NAVIGATION

Ran through a very quick overview of the settings features and functions then focused on the following:

PHOTOS
Mentioned that photos could be transferred to the PS3 from USB and card

READERS
Demoed standard search via XMB as per PSP, then showed the photo album option allowing users to navigate their photos with real time rendered scrapbook interface which featured meta data for each image.

Mentioned that the interface can/will be updated in the future

MUSIC
Showed standard XMB navigation as per PSP plus the 3D visualiser.

Mentioned that music can be ripped from discs or downloaded and all managed under this icon.

Access to and from audio tracks was very quick

VIDEO
Showed standard XMB navigation as per PSP but also showed that each video clip thumbnail ran a sequence from the video, all in real time.

Mentioned that video content could be downloaded and managed through this icon.

Access to and from video content was very quick with no waiting time or delay.

NETWORK
Friends List ­ showed how to manage friends lists including writing notes to friends demoed using the on screen predictive text function and how to invite or remove friends from the list.

INTERNET BROWSER
Showed the full functioning, free out of the box, browser.

Demoed how to manage web pages in the browser and showed how it was possible to have multiple web pages opened at any one time in the browser.

REMOTE PLAY
Demoed this feature by launching the PS3 XMB on a PSP via a wireless connection and accessing content from the PS3 hard drive on the PSP. Used the Casino Royale trailer to demo this.

The feature is represented on the XMB with a PSP shaped icon.

Looks like the feature will be available from launch.

PLAYSTATION®STORE
Represented on the XMB icon list with a blue carrier bag featuring the PS icons.

Ready for launch on 11th November.

Integrated Crossfire so PS3/PC gamers can play online together.

Psone games available for download from the store to PSP initially, then PS3.

Demoed how to make a transaction and how parents can set wallet limits.

Mentioned that the PlayStation Card ­ for funding your Store Wallet ­ will be available at retail or you can use normal credit card.

The demo was running a live connection over the web to the online store via a DSL line.

Mentioned that you can login to your own account from other PS3s ­ from up to five different PS3s.

The pricing for full downloadable games will be $14.99 or less but other gaming content (e.g. weapons upgrades) will be a lot less.

Content available for download includes: Game demos, full games, movie trailers (in SD & HD), music, and additional game content.

There will be 4-5 game demos available from launch day for download from the store and showed a download of the Motorstorm demo to illustrate this.

DOWNLOADABLE GAMES

Demoed two new bespoke downloadable titles ­ one of which will be available at launch.

BLAST FACTOR

3D Space Invaders style game with full multi-player functionality, online rankings and high scores.

Available at launch. The title features dynamic difficulty ­ the game gets harder the better you are at it and vice versa.

Uses the motion sensing function of the controller to flip objects over which will be strategic in later levels.

The game has 100 levels and runs at 60 fps and 1080p.

CRIMINAL CRACKDOWN
A game harking back to 16 bit era, multi-player online and up to 4 player offline split-screen.

Bounty hunter driving game. A cross between Demolition Derby and Basketball.

Runs at 60 fps and 1080p. Will be available in Feb/Mar 07.

Here’s a bit of footage of a demonstration of Tony Hawks Project 8 for the PS3, with the six axis controller.

If it wasn’t for Ken Kutaragi, there would have been no PlayStation. The games industry legend, whose job title is President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment (so there’s no doubting that he’s the head honcho) is known as “the father of the PlayStation”. For good reason: an electronic engineer by trade, he designed the original PlayStation and much of the PS2, PS3 and PSP.

Despite his incredibly lofty status, Kutaragi in person is surprisingly approachable and open. Although it’s not often that you get to see him in person, as he’s one of the world’s busiest men. A naturally smiley and sunny chap, he used to have a penchant for Chairman Mao jackets, which now seems to have given way to sharp charcoal suits. Coincidentally, that was exactly what he was wearing, when we managed to accost him for ten minutes or so, at a PS3 showcase event held after the first day of the Tokyo Games Show. Taking place at Sony’s incredibly impressive central Tokyo HQ (apparently, Kutaragi’s office overlooks the Royal Palace), we joined the press scrum that surrounded him, and got the chance to ask a handful of questions… maybe down to Ken’s broken English, or our poor hearing, some of the answers came as a bit of a surprise.

Q: Surely the next generation of consoles will have no disks, but use streaming media?

KK: With the next generation, that may well be right (laughs).

Q: What PlayStation 3 games will be on sale at launch in Japan?

KK: There will be approximately 20 games on sale at launch.

Q: Have you announced which ones?

KK: No, because a lot of the titles are still going through QA (Quality Assurance), and we have to speak to our third parties, in order to determine which of their titles will be ready for launch as well.

Q: And there will definitely be games with an online component on sale at launch?

KK: Yes, we’re trying to include online elements into all of our launch titles, and are encouraging the 3rd parties to do the same.

Q: Do you think the PS3 will outsell the Xbox 360 and the Wii?

KK: We don’t care.

***We spoke to Sony about this response, as it seemed a pretty ballsy statement to make, especially in light of how they’re being perceived (arrogant, out of touch, losing the battle etc.) by press and consumers alike at the moment.

They told us that what Ken will have meant is that, while they have a great deal of respect for the ‘competition’, they have always worked to their own business plan. In essence, regardless of what anyone else does, they’ll be sticking to their original plan where PS3 is concerned and won’t be changing things, just because company A does this, or company B does that. So there you go!***

Q: Do you think the PS3 will have a longer life-cycle than those consoles?

KK: Because we implanted a lot of new & cutting-edge technology in the PlayStation 3, it will have a long life – Future-proof, this is the answer.

Q: Were you surprised by the bad publicity Sony received after E3?

KK: I want to ask you (laughs). It always happens. When we released the PlayStation and even the PlayStation 2, I didn’t see any favourable articles. Press coverage always said: “PlayStation will fail,” or: “We have lost our momentum,” and blah blah blah. But we have lots of passion and confidence in both the PlayStation 3 hardware, and the software titles being produced for it.

Q: After the launch period, how many PlayStation 3s will you manufacture per month?

KK: The target is one million per month. But right now, we are making tiny amounts for the launch, because of the blue laser diode problem. We clearly need to catch up – but are still confident that we can meet our projected 6 million shipment figure by the end of the financial year.

Q: Is the blue laser diode manufacturing problem fixed now?

KK: Right now, it is an issue, because we can’t manufacture enough blue laser diodes for enough PlayStation 3s. But we will resolve that, and then question becomes how many PlayStation 3s we will be able to market.

Q: How important for Sony is it that Blu-ray is a success?

KK: It is important not just for Sony, but for the movie, component, software developer and even the TV industry. The PS3 has a perfectly nice graphics capability, allowing non-compression and high frame-rates, so it works well together with BD. Every manufacturer releasing flat-panel displays – not only Sony, but the likes of Panasonic, Samsung and Sharp – everyone is now welcoming PlayStation 3 and applauding today’s announcement about HDMI features.

Q: So how important is it that Blu-ray beats HD-DVD?

KK: It is important. Personally, I love Blu-ray, because Blu-ray has higher capacities than HD-DVD. Also it has a better bit-rate, which allows a differentiation in picture quality. So, right now, while the PC manufacturers are supporting HD-DVD, it is clear that current PCs cannot pick out the specification of Blu-ray using current CPUs. This is the main reason why the HD-DVD picture quality is not sexy enough. So we only have the PS3.

Q: But surely, you can only really tell the difference between Blu-ray and HD-DVD on a progressive-scan TV?

KK: On any TV, you can distinguish the difference.