phil-rogers
Latest
New Square Enix president undertaking full review of company
New Square Enix president Yosuke Matsuda plans to go over his company with a fine-toothed comb following Square Enix's recent losses and restructuring efforts, which include layoffs."After having succeeded the important role as the president, I plan on reviewing all Square Enix duties, business and assets on a zero-based budgeting standpoint," Matsuda told investors, as translated by Siliconera. "Due to the radical change of environment, I'd like to fundamentally review what works and what doesn't work for our company, then cast all of our resources towards extending what makes us successful and thoroughly squeezing out what doesn't."Matsuda will appoint Square Enix Europe CEO Phil Rogers as director of Square Enix Holdings. Rogers will work with Matsuda on the restructuring efforts. The Final Fantasy Versus XIII team is currently sitting quietly in their office with all the lights off until Matsuda's review is over.
Sony on how PS3 and Vita will play together
During the Develop conference (via Eurogamer), Sony Europe R&D manager Phil Rogers outlined some possible interactions between the PlayStation Vita and the PS3. The systems are already known to share saves across compatible games, and share some interoperable games like Wipeout 2048, but Rogers discussed some other capabilities, including some not yet seen in Vita/PS3 interaction. "PS3 can send data down to Vita and Vita can display it," he said. "You could use the unique features [of Vita] - gyroscope, touch front and back - as a control device for a PS3 game." In what could be a veiled dig at the Wii U, he also said that because you can have games running on both systems, each using its own processor, "You're not sacrificing the PS3's CPU to be able to have a rich experience on Vita." At launch, the Vita will have some cross-platform features, including scoreboards and PSN user data. "For launch we'll also have Remote Play, which does look good on Vita - I saw an early version of it running recently." Remote Play, also available on the PSP right now, allows video of compatible titles to be streamed from the PS3 for play on the PSP. Continuation Play, through which a game can be saved on one platform and played on the other, will also be available early on. The first known game to use that is Ruin.
PlayStation Vita's Near, LiveArea and other social features outlined
Between its Near, Party, LiveArea and Activity social features, there's a whole lot going on under the hood of the PlayStation Vita. SCEE R&D exec Phil Rogers broke down those capabilities at Develop last week: Near, for instance, will allow Vita owners to look at the favorite games of nearby players, and allow players to drop and pick up "gifts," which could range from special in-game items to high score challenges. Rogers explained that Party will give players cross-game chat capabilities, allowing them to invite friends to groups and launch games directly through the UI, which all party members will be invited to. The LiveArea is a tad more esoteric: it will display information about software as it is launched, and will allow users to "comment on people's activities within the game as well as publish your messages." Sounds like the perfect receptacle for smack talk. Finally, the Activity feed will show the in-game accomplishments of friends (including high scores and Trophy unlocks) in real time. The feed can also be updated by publishers and developers, though Rogers suggested, "it's important not to spam users too much and to use it sensibly." We pray that Rogers' advice is heeded.
Yoichi Wada declares industry ready for the next stage
Great minds across the industry all seem to agree: Video games are heading into a new era. President of Square Enix, Yoichi Wada (pictured, right), has proven he too belongs to this school of thought, sharing his musings on the coming of a "second stage of growth" for the industry. Wada says it's a combination of the platform having stabilized as a mainstream form of entertainment and the leveling off of demand (as it's reached its limit), that will load gaming into the next level."From now on, it will grow further as an established mainstream entertainment, and there will be further convergence of media and entertainment," said Wada. With that in mind, we'd like to point out that proof of accelerated convergence is already happening in the industry. It looks like the gears are all set; all that's left is to turn them. [Via Edge-Online]
Eidos 'needs to be more ruthless,' says SCi CEO
SCi Entertainment Group CEO Phil Rogers, whose company owns Eidos, said the publishing company needs to lose its ruth, so to speak. Speaking to MCV, Rogers said, "In today's environment of lengthening development cycles and increasing costs, we need to be more ruthless and focus on our quality titles."Rogers also said that, on a whole, Eidos has released "too many average games which are tying up resources." We think Rogers is either really pushing for a new company direction or he's using tough words to drive up stock prices further for an oft-speculated takeover. In either sense, if he keeps to his word (that's a big "if"), it bodes well for secret project T.
