johnhight
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Interview with SCEA's Hight confirms PSN redesign in April, Warhawk expansion, PS1 games
Wow, more and more rumors popping up on the interwebs are proving to be true. This time around, the rumor about an April PSN store overhaul has been confirmed in an interview with John Hight, SCEA's director of product development. Hight is quoted saying, "I think you will see a pretty big change in the PlayStation Network in the early part of April, where we roll out some new interface stuff largely based on customer feedback." So, we now know there's definitely a redesign coming, but we're still in the dark about new content like, oh say, that rumored video download service.Also in the interview, Hight confirms that the rumored expansion for Warhawk should hit the PSN by April, too. Hight stated, "We just released an expansion on Warhawk in September, and we'll release another one in April." Further more, when questioned about Japanese PS1 games on the American PSN store, Hight had this to say, "I'm pretty darn sure they will [appear on the American PSN], but I don't know which titles." Now hold your horses, what that probably means is that we could be seeing a similar title catalog, and not that Japanese version games will appear on the US PSN. Nice, but not a guarantee. Well, we'd be happy if we could just get Resident Evil 2 in our store ...
PS3 E-distribution explained -- more or less
Gamasutra recently interviewed John Hight, who is heading up the PS3's E-distribution project, getting a few interesting tidbits about Sony's online service along the way. Advantages of E-distribution? Selling online makes it simpler to go international, to niche and remote markets. Also, inventory no longer comes as a risk since there are no physical units being carted around (this also lowers the stacks of used games sitting at our favorite stores -- everyone knows how many copies of Madden 20xx there are when the new Madden 20xx +1 rendition appears). Another advantage that always gets mentioned -- "This new form of distribution will lower the barriers of entry for new developers. We can try out new ideas in a low risk, quick feedback environment." Hooray, mom and pop joints! Now if only they were getting the dev-kits on time like the bigger companies...What kind of titles can we expect to be distributed via this E-contraption? "We fund development for 1st party games and we are open to self-funded games." So many of Sony's internal studio games will come to the new console this way, if the E-distribution system works properly. If they don't sell well, hopefully they'll take a note from XBox Live and let any third-party into the ... party. Want to design a game and have it distributed via Sony's new system? Hight demands that we: "Create a high concept or, better yet, build a working prototype of [your] game. Then register on our developer website www.playstation.com/beyond." While the submission site isn't exactly brand spankin' new, it does imply that some games (possibly our submissions) may be set up to download as a subscription or a one-time purchase. Should Sony really go the subscription route? How about for small developers using their E-distribution? Hopefully it will be a "subscribe" or "purchase" option for each ... kind of like a rental, then a purchase, for the cautious among us.
