Phil Harrison
Latest
I wish Google showed more faith in Stadia
Closing its first-party studios reminds us that Google's itchy trigger-finger is often hovering over the products we expect to exist for years.
Google Stadia may offer publisher-specific subscriptions
Last week, Google revealed pricing and availability for its much-anticipated game streaming service Stadia. It announced the Founder's Edition and Stadia Pro packages, as well as a targeted November release date. Later, Phil Harrison, a vice president and general manager of Google, seemed to slip a few more details. During YouTube's E3 Live show, Harrison reportedly said Stadia will also offer publisher-specific subscriptions. Those could allow Stadia gamers to subscribe to all titles from individual publishers.
Nexon, Wargaming, Zynga CEO back mobile startup fund
Venture capital firm London Venture Partners is offering initial funding for mobile game development startups. The firm plans to invest between $50,000 and $500,000 into developers that are primarily in Europe. LVP General Partner Paul Heydon told TechCrunch that the firm plans to invest in 20 to 25 projects "of up to half a million dollars each over the lifetime of the fund." The money is coming from Asian publisher Nexon, World of Tanks creator Wargaming and Zynga CEO Don Mattrick. London Venture Partners includes former Atari CEO David Gardner with Microsoft's Corporate VP Phil Harrison serving as a special advisor. Harrison joined Gardner's firm in May 2010. LVP's previous investments include Clash of Clans developer Supercell, the now-Zynga-owned Backbreaker studio NaturalMotion, as well as development platform Unity. [Image: London Venture Partners]
Microsoft VP Phil Harrison to keynote DICE Europe
Microsoft Corporate VP Phil Harrison is sharing his vision for "the future of interactive entertainment" during his keynote at this year's DICE Europe conference. Formerly a Sony and Atari executive, Microsoft appointed Harrison in 2012 with a focus of growing the Interactive Entertainment Business' European interest and overseeing UK studios such as Rare and Lionhead. Harrison is the first confirmed speaker for the second DICE gathering across the sea, after a debut year that featured the likes of Crytek CEO Cevat Yerli and Oddworld Inhabitants President Lorne Lanning. The 2014 conference returns to Royal Garden Hotel in London, with Harrison's opening keynote set for the evening of September 23, followed by a day of talks on this year's "Without Borders" theme. [Image: DICE Europe]
Harrison: Microsoft is watching what Valve does 'with great interest'
With this week's SteamOS and Steam Machines reveal, Valve's grand step into the living room might make the other major inhabitants uneasy. Microsoft's corporate VP Phil Harrison acknowledged the Steam creators in a recent interview with Eurogamer, saying that "Valve is a very impressive company, and obviously we're going to be watching what they do with great interest." While the Xbox One's impending launch is set for November 22, Harrison recently said in his Eurogamer Expo keynote that the console will be around for ten years. Valve's Steam Machines doesn't seem to impact that projection. "I think the death of the video game console was prematurely announced," Harrison continued, going back to an earlier question in the interview about the future of gaming consoles. "Clearly there is a lot of excitement around gaming in the living room on the biggest screen in the house, often times connected to a great sound system and creating that real intensely high quality game experience with a very powerful CPU and a very powerful GPU." "Our point of view, clearly, is that Xbox One is the best incarnation of that, but competition is good," he said. If Microsoft wants to watch Valve's approach closer, its best bet is getting in on the Steam Machines hardware beta, which includes the Steam Controller announced today.
Microsoft: First 'ID@Xbox' games in early 2014
Corporate VP Phil Harrison says the indie games launched through Microsoft's Xbox One initiative are likely to show up starting in early 2014, following "an avalanche of interest" in the ID@Xbox program introduced last month. Now it's simply a matter of poring over all of the applications and getting the console shipped out to developers. "I don't think we're going to see things at launch. I don't think it's realistic to see a developer get the programme and build a game and get it into the market on November 22," Harrison told GI.biz. "It's reasonable to expect in early 2014 we'll start seeing the first games come through." The goal for Microsoft is to eventually enable all retail Xbox One consoles to double as development kits for self-publishing. As for indie games on Xbox One, they won't be segregated from the big AAA games – indie games can utilize Achievements and all the pricing freedom available to any other game on the Xbox Games Store. The Xbox One will be available on November 22.
Microsoft UK names new studio 'Lift London,' shuffles executives
Originally announced sans moniker back in September, Microsoft UK's new London-based studio now has something to put on its letterhead: "Lift London."Helmed by former Rare production designer Lee Schuneman, Lift London is a "21st century studio – not a studio that would make retail games – but a studio that would make games for the cloud," says Microsoft EMEA corporate vice president Phil Harrison, according to Develop. As announced previously, Lift London will primarily focus on developing games for connected mobile Microsoft devices in European territories, with an emphasis on tablet gaming.Harrison also announced that Rare studio boss Scott Henson will begin calling various shots as Lionhead Studios' new head of operations, permanently replacing the long gone Peter Molyneux. Until now, Lionhead has been the purview of COO Mark Webley. Additionally, former EA Partners/Origin senior director of business development Roger Walkden has been appointed as Lionhead's head of staff, presumably after several hundred puns were made out of his last name.
Phil Harrison heads to Microsoft as vice prez of Interactive Entertainment Business arm
We've officially turned on the theme song to Welcome Back, Kotter and started growing a lustrous mustache in honor of Phil Harrison's return to Game Industry Executiveland. This morning, reports from Europe indicated that Harrison would head to Microsoft -- Microsoft clarified the news later, which named him corporate vice president of Interactive Entertainment Business "with an emphasis on growing the division's European business."Microsoft corporate vice president of Studios Phil Spencer welcomed Harrison in a press release. "We are honored to have Phil join a team that boasts a wealth of talent from across the industry," Spencer said. Harrison is charged with "overseeing UK-based developers Lionhead Studios, Soho Productions and Rare Ltd.," a role he'll likely warm to quickly given past work as head of worldwide studios for Sony Computer Entertainment.Harrison's most recent employer is game industry venture capital firm London Venture Partners, where he served as general partner. He continues on as "special advisor." Harrison will not be replacing former Microsoft Studios Europe head Peter Molyneux (who recently left Microsoft), though he will be overseeing Lionhead. Molyneux's role at Lionhead as studio manager is currently occupied by COO Mark Webley, according to Microsoft.Update: Microsoft announced Harrison's appointment this morning to corporate vice president of Microsoft's "Interactive Entertainment Business" arm, with a focus on European markets. See the full presser just below the jump.[Image credit: Flickr user 'jontintinjordan']
Former Sony exec Phil Harrison takes over for Peter Molyneux at Microsoft (update: confirmed)
Phil Harrison, former head of Sony Worldwide Studios and the man that introduced the world to Playstation Home and gave one of the earliest public demos of the PS3, is heading to Microsoft. Harrison, also a former member of the board at Atari, will be stepping into the shoes recently abandoned by gaming legend Peter Molyneux. While his role at Lionhead was filled by the studio's co-founder Mark Webley, Molyneux's role as head Microsoft's European gaming efforts was left vacant while the company searched for the right fit. The man for the job is apparently Harrison, who is expected to be officially introduced by the Redmond crew later today.Update: Well, that didn't take long. Check out the PR after the break announcing Harrison's joining of the Interactive Entertainment Business team.Update 2: Microsoft has reached out to us to clarify that Harrison joining the team is unrelated to Molyneux's departure and there is still a vacancy for Microsoft Studios Europe Creative Director which may be filled with internal talent.[Image credit: Rob Fahey]
Phil Harrison sees dominant Apple, biometric screens in the future
Edge Online polled Phil Harrison, formerly of Sony and Atari, and now of Gaikai, about the future of gaming and technology in general. He very quickly identified one trend that it's hard not to see coming: continued growth for Apple's game platforms and the App Store. "At this trajectory, if you extrapolate the market-share gains that they are making, forward for ten years – if they carry on unrestrained in their growth, then there's a pretty good chance that Apple will be the games industry." He had some predictions about the way games are presented, as well. Specifically, still on screens, but much fancier ones. Because of the declining cost of flat-panel displays, and the TV's place as a new "social hearth," those will continue to be in wide use, but in much higher resolutions and with both touch and biometric input. " I think there will be an industry that will appear out of 'personal biometrics' where as a human being you will take more control of your own health and well-being by getting data from your own body," he said. According to Harrison, private biometric data about the user's own lifestyle will be monetized by the game industry as soon as the healthcare industry delivers the technology. Vitality Sensors for all!
Phil Harrison joins Gaikai advisory board
Backing up his talk, Phil Harrison has joined the advisory board of cloud-gaming service Gaikai. In his keynote address before the Italian Videogame Developers Conference last December, Harrison precipitated "the browser wars of the 21st century" -- a battle to distribute console-quality, triple-A games on any browser-equipped device. "Somebody is going to win," he said at the time. "Somebody is going to deliver console-level 3D graphics, video and audio into a web browser." It would appear that Harrison has placed his chips -- or at least some of them -- on Gaikai. The one-time president of Sony Computer Entertainment (oh, and Atari, too -- don't forget), Harrison will maintain his role as rich guy investor at London Venture Partners, which he co-founded last year with some other fat cats. Joining the rich guy on the Gaikai advisory board is rich gal Robin Kaminsky, the former executive VP of Activision, who led both studio and marketing activities. Kaminsky's marketing experience in particular is coveted by Gaikai CEO David Perry. "The first use of Gaikai's open cloud is to disrupt how video game advertising works," he said in today's advisory board announcement. Gaikai's current mission differs from the service provided by chief competitor OnLive (oh, and Otoy, too -- don't forget) in that it seeks to provide browser-based demos that developers and publishers can feature on their websites to drive full-game sales. Gaikai is currently in a closed beta testing phase.
Phil Harrison: The 'next generation' of games is the web browser
Speaking at the Italian Videogame Developers Conference, former Atari head and current co-founder of London Venture Partners, Phil Harrison, discussed his vision of the future of video games. Harrison believes that "the next generation platform for games" will be powerful web browsers, programs that will "deliver console level 3D graphics, video and audio." Such a browser will be able to deliver a title on par with Modern Warfare 2 noted Harrison, saying, "I think in the next five-to-ten years we will easily get this level of game inside a web browser, on your mobile platform, on your iPad, and we will be able to deliver that level of immersion to any kind of screen." He added further that the boxed retail industry is being replaced by "a service industry where everything is delivered digitally on the internet." He pointed to the music industry as an example of this shift, saying that it's indicative of what's happening to the game industry. The crux of Harrison's speech, lest you haven't gathered, is that the future is online, a point he illustrated by noting that online games garner 68 percent of the industry's venture capital. Head over to Develop for the full scoop on Harrison's keynote.
Phil Harrison returns in: 'London Venture Partners'
Phil Harrison is joining former Atari CEO chum David Gardner at London Venture Partners, an investment firm looking to fund "disruptive new technology in the online, social, mobile and web game space" -- you know, the type of stuff that was supposed to happen over at Atari during the pair's "extreme makeover" of the publisher. Develop reports that Harrison and Gardner will join former Electronic Arts VP David Lau-Kee and investment banker Paul Heyden as founders of the company. The firm's business will allegedly have something to do with the Unity engine. As for what type of Atari full-circle executive board member Nolan Bushnell inherited from the two former show runners? We'll find that out when the publisher announces its earnings May 28.
Nolan Bushnell and Tom Virden join Atari board; Harrison and Gardner depart
Apparently Atari founder Nolan Bushnell has ended his recent revisit with game development, as the publisher announced today the addition of Bushnell to its executive board alongside "online entrepreneur" Tom Virden. This is the second executive acquisition announcement that Atari has made in recent days, with John Burns, former European head of EA's online publishing, joining up just last week. The company has said it's focusing on moving towards an online-based business, and today's appointments will be overseeing that transition with the rest of the Audit Committee (a.k.a. the executive board). "I am very excited to be reacquainted with Atari at a time when it is poised to make interesting strides in key growth areas of the games industry," Bushnell said. "The company and its iconic brands have always been important to me, and I look forward to further guiding them at the board level." Meanwhile, Atari has also announced the resignations of David Gardner, former CEO and director at Infogrames, and Phil Harrison, former Atari president turned board member. Happy trails! Update: An Atari rep got back to us, confirming that Bushnell and Virden will be filling the positions left open by Harrison and Gardner.
Xbox chief Shane Kim steps down, Spencer and Durkin promoted
After 19 years of working for gaming/computing software juggernaut Microsoft, Shane Kim will step down at the end of this year, according to a report from Gamasutra. His duties as vice president of strategy and business development for the company's Interactive Entertainment Business sector will be filled by Phil Spencer, general manager of Microsoft Game Studios, and Dennis Durkin, chief financial officer for the IEB division. When asked for his reasons for stepping down, Kim replied, "Well, the JoBro (ed: Jonas Brothers) are about to go on tour again, and, well, you know. You only live once, and that one life should be spent seeing as many JoBro (ed: Jonas Brothers) concerts as humanly possible." Okay, he didn't really say that. However, a Microsoft representative reportedly told Gamasutra that Kim "expressed a desire to spend more time with family, so that's why he's making his retirement." More details about the two-decade Microsoft veteran's departure should be coming in a press release soon. We wish Mr. Kim the best of luck with his newly acquired free time. [Image]
LittleBigPlanet, Media Molecule sweep Develop Awards
We piled our accolades atop LittleBigPlanet back in January -- now, nearly six months later, the Develop Industry Excellence Awards are doing the same thing. LBP, and the minds at Media Molecule who created it, won all five awards they were nominated for: Best New Studio, Best Independent Developer, Best New IP and Achievements in Visual Arts and Technical Innovation.Other big winners included Rockstar (both Leeds and North took home one award each) and Phil Harrison, who was bestowed the Development Legend Award, and finally given the Shinest Head in Europe Award. A full list of the winners is listed after the break.
Phil Harrison steps down as president of troubled Atari
Atari president Phil Harrison, who joined the company last year, has taken a position as "non-executive director." According to Eurogamer, the move is a result of Atari's new focus on North American operations, following the sale of its European distribution to Namco Bandai.Parent company Infogrames announced a loss of €226.1 million ($319.6m) for the last fiscal year, due in part to the loss of revenue that would have come in from the distribution business. As a result, Atari said it has canceled some of its projects to focus on "more cost-effective" games. The identity of the canceled projects is unknown, but Atari released a hint of what some of the new, cost-effective, mass-market games would be: Cryptic Studios will create "a series of new games based on Atari's existing and historically successful IPs."
Phil Harrison would 'love' to prove Activision wrong about Ghostbusters
When it comes to the much anticipated Ghostbusters game, Atari's Phil Harrison – somehow it still sounds wrong – clearly wants Activision to know what it lost when it cut the game (and several others) loose earlier this year. Speaking to MCV, he called out Activision-Blizzard CEO, Bobby Kotick, on the decision. "What Bobby, perhaps unhelpfully said, was that those games were franchises which wouldn't make $100m of revenue and generate sequels," Harrison said of Blizzivision's choice to offload Ghostbusters. "If that's his benchmark, then fine – and we'd love to aspire to the same benchmarks. But you know what? I would love to turn Ghostbusters into a $100m franchise, just to prove him wrong." That may not happen, but given the hype and fan following – not to mention the fact that it's coming out on at least five platforms – Activision might yet kick itself when the sales numbers are tallied.
Atari acquires Cryptic Studios
In a piece of news that comes out of nowhere, Atari has announced that they've bought Cryptic Studios, the developer originally responsible for creating City of Heroes. Right now, Cryptic has three upcoming games: Champions Online, Star Trek Online and a third unannounced title. As part of the acquisition, Atari will have access to Cryptic's technology for use their games as well as for their website portal.However, the most interesting part is that after an initial USD 26.7 million upfront payment to Cryptic, they stand to earn even more money through a performance-related bonus. How much? Try another USD 20 million in cash or stock, so long as the 2010-11 revenues of Champions Online and Star Trek Online outperform specific undisclosed targets. It would appear that Atari is expecting Cryptic's upcoming games to perform fairly well, and to launch fairly promptly. We can only hope, Star Trek and Champions fans.Phil Harrison, director of Atari, has said in the past that the company's main focus would be online games and digital delivery. So while this news isn't out of the ordinary in that respect, it certainly came out of the blue. This also may fuel the fire of the rumor that Cryptic is bringing both of their upcoming titles to the PS3. There's no word yet on whether or not this affects the 2k Games publishing deal made for Champions Online.[Thanks, Stan]
Atari focused on downloadable PSP games
While the PSP may be suffering from a drought of UMDs worth your holiday dollar, Atari's Phil Harrison is convinced that Sony's sexy portable remains a "very vibrant platform," at least when it comes to downloadables. Despite a lack of PSP titles in its upcoming catalog, Eurogamer reports that the former Sony exec is "looking to explore" the platform's digital goodies down the line.Hardly a shock, especially given Harrison's notion that kids of tomorrow will turn their noses up at the idea of owning physical media. However, without any of those big-budget, single-player games to fall back on we doubt we'll be busting ghosts or assaulting Dark Athena while waiting for the bus any time soon.
