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PlayStation Experience panel topics include God of War, Nathan Drake, PlayStation AMA
The PlayStation Experience will host fans of the PlayStation family next month as they try out recently-released and upcoming games, but about 20 panels are also on the agenda for next month's event in Las Vegas. While an exact schedule hasn't been nailed down, a recent PlayStation Blog post has outlined the topics for each confirmed panel. Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson, voices and animation sources of The Last of Us' respective Joel and Ellie, will be present for a panel on how voice-over and performance capture are integrated into games. Naughty Dog will host two panels, one featuring a video that looks back on the studio's 30 years of existence, the other following the process of character creation (including Nathan Drake's transition to PS4). Santa Monica Studio will offer up a God of War series retrospective, and Sony President Shuhei Yoshida, VP of Publisher Relations Adam Boyes and Software Product Development Head for Sony Worldwide Studios Scott Rohde will also be present for an "Ask Me Anything"-style presentation. A full list of event descriptions can be parsed through on the PS Blog, with additional panels covering N++, Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition, the LittleBigPlanet series and what it's like to work in Japan's gaming industry. If any topics interest you or you just like the idea of playing games before they're released, PlayStation Experience is inviting those 18 and over to Las Vegas for the weekend of December 6. [Image: PlayStation Experience]
You do not talk about Driveclub's release date (yet)
Once slated to debut alongside the PlayStation 4 in November of last year, next-gen racer Driveclub has adopted a low profile, like a Lamborghini Aventador in the witness protection program. Sony and developer Evolution Studios pushed the game back in October, saying they needed more time and work to perfect a shared vision of shiny cars. According to a new exchange between IGN and Scott Rohde, development head for Sony Worldwide Studios America, the detail-oriented racing game has shifted "back to the drawing board" in pursuit of quality. Driveclub isn't ready to be shipped – not without doing customers a "disservice," Rohde said. He did not confirm a new release date, in 2014 or otherwise. Joystiq has spoken to Mr. Rohde about PlayStation no-shows before, but Driveclub has a more prolific studio – and only one slip – behind it. Of course, if we see its metallic body coming over the hill, with a giant half-bird half-cat behind the wheel, we'll experience the end of two mysteries at once. That hasn't happened since we recorded two episodes of Murder, She Wrote onto a single VHS. Image: Sony
The Last Guardian is 'alive,' with no release in sight
There have likely been more articles devoted to the constant reaffirmation of life in The Last Guardian than to detailed description of its contents. The latest round comes from PlayStation's Scott Rohde, Software Product Development Head for Sony Worldwide Studios America. "So, we're not talking about when The Last Guardian is coming out, but it is still a game that there's a lot of love for inside PlayStation walls, because everybody sees how emotionally driven that the entire fan base of PlayStation always responds with when we talk about The Last Guardian," Rohde said in an interview on Tuesday. "That's something that's very important to all of us, but we're not announcing any details on it." The exact status of The Last Guardian has become a mystery, exacerbated by a leadership shakeup and a long, unprompted absence from the public eye. Sony America CEO Jack Tretton was recently quoted as saying the game was on "hiatus," which Sony Worldwide Studios head Shuhei Yoshida countered, saying it was "in active development." Meanwhile, Scott Rohde puts it in simpler terms: "It is alive."
Status Report: the PlayStation Vita, three months in
"Three months, forty titles in. I think it's a fantastic machine. Of course we'd like to sell more of them, and we have key plans to do that," Sony's VP of Product Development and Worldwide Studios, Scott Rohde, told us in an interview during E3 2012. We asked Rohde for a status update on the PlayStation Vita, which launched in North America in late February. Despite less than stellar sales of the handheld and a light upcoming game lineup, Rohde's positivity on the Vita is unshaken."We're building a lot of additional titles internally. A lot of good third-party support, you saw that announced at our press conference. So, we think that it's certainly on the rise. Still doing well. Would we like it to do better? Of course. And we're doing everything we can in terms of providing great new content – sixty titles next year – to insure that that will happen," he said.Despite Rohde's claims, Sony reps hardly mentioned the Vita during the company's E3 2012 press conference. Across an hour and a half, the three-month-old console only warranted three mentions, and just one for a first-party Vita game (PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale). As host, SCEA president and CEO Jack Tretton promised 60 new games on Vita in 2012, but didn't show a single one. Outside of PS All-Stars, the only two Vita games shown were third-party juggernauts Call of Duty Black Ops: Declassified and Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation. Both of those are scheduled to launch this year."You know that Sly will also have a PlayStation Vita presence. Some things that we're not announcing yet. You saw LittleBigPlanet Vita ... if I can sit here and say you've got PlayStation All-Stars, you've got Sly, you've got Assassin's, you've got Call of Duty, and you've got LittleBigPlanet – that's a pretty nice set to build a foundation on," Rohde added. "And there are a lot of other bigger and smaller things that we just haven't announced yet."Of the system itself, Rohde said he "wouldn't change anything" about it. As for the launch, however, he said, "If I could go back in time, maybe I would've spread out some of the software releases a little bit." 25 games of varying quality launched alongside the PlayStation Vita this past February, with 10 more in the console's "launch window" (that window is apparently still open, as Silent Hill: Book of Memories has yet to come out).That latest game from Sony's internal studios for Vita is the critically acclaimed Gravity Rush. PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale is planned for a "holiday" launch on PlayStation 3 and Vita.
Sony's 'wacky' Tokyo Jungle headed to North America and Europe
Despite the absence of a pomeranian guest appearance at Sony's E3 2012 press conference, the company's delightfully bizarre-looking Tokyo Jungle is indeed headed to PlayStation Network in North America and Europe. A press release this week confirmed the EU release, and Sony VP of product development and worldwide studios Scott Rohde told us in an interview this week that the "wacky" internally developed PSN game will indeed arrive in North America as well."It'll ship here, it'll ship everywhere," Rohde said. To him, Tokyo Jungle's worldwide release is emblematic of Sony's "crazy innovative" approach. "That game is just wacky, but in a good way, because we like to show that there's still an art form, and you can still experiment," he said. "Is everyone gonna love a game like Tokyo Jungle? Absolutely not, but there's a whole bunch of people it's gonna make really happy. Specifically for the fact that it's so different, and so unexpected. That's a key part of the culture of Worldwide Studios and how our games are developed."Though he couldn't name one specific person internally who championed the previously Japan-only game, Rohde extolled the internal culture that allows games like that to be created. "Someone has a key vision in our [Japan Studios] about Tokyo Jungle, they wanted to build this game. And so we're gonna embrace that. And of course we discuss it, and if it doesn't make sense, we can walk away. We walk away from dozens and dozens of titles every year. But the difference is, we actually build them out to a certain extent. And when they hit a point where we think, 'You know what? This is pretty interesting and it's gonna make some people happy,' we're gonna build it."Frankly, we're pretty darn happy this one made it through the wringer. Tokyo Jungle doesn't have a release date or price just yet.%Gallery-157097%
Uncharted is a 'pillar franchise,' nothing to say about its future just yet
"This show is about Naughty Dog and The Last of Us. So we're not talking about Uncharted for the future," Sony VP of product development and worldwide studios Scott Rohde told Joystiq in an interview this week. That doesn't mean there aren't things happening with the Uncharted franchise elsewhere at Sony, of course. "It's a Sony IP, but it's just not something we're talking about. Of course it's one of our pillar franchises," Rohde said.The latest entry in the Uncharted franchise was the Vita's Uncharted: Golden Abyss – the series' first title not developed by Naughty Dog. Its production was instead handled by Sony's internal Bend studio, with Naughty Dog overseeing development. Rohde added that "it'd be ridiculous to say that we're not always thinking about [Uncharted], but we're just not talking about it right now."
Wii U lead isn't important, contends Sony's Rohde
Sony isn't talking next-gen at this year's E3. Nor is Microsoft. Nintendo's Wii U, however, got its big debut this week, and the console is planned for a holiday 2012 launch. As we learned in the last hardware generation and the generation before that, being the first out of the gate in terms of launching hardware can mean the difference between first and third place. SCEA Senior VP of Product Development and worldwide studios Scott Rohde, however, isn't worried about the potential for Wii U to lead the next hardware generation due to its launch lead."Not at all. That's the simple answer," he told Joystiq in an interview this week. "In very similar fashion to the way I'm talking about game development," he said, referencing Sony's hands-off approach to internal game development. "We have a very strong vision in what we believe we're gonna do for the next generation. And we're not talking about it at all yet," he added with a smile."The reality is let's build a great machine. And we'll talk about it then." With Unreal Engine 4 getting a big debut recently, and it being held up as the harbinger of the next hardware generation, we expect we'll be hearing from both Sony about that potentially "great machine" not too long from now.
Understanding Sony's lessened focus on 3D at this year's E3
During last year's Sony E3 press conference, the company spent quite a bit of time talking 3D. Several titles were on the horizon with 3D support, including main entries in series like Uncharted and Killzone. Since then, the company toned down its approach to 3D integration.Sony Senior VP of Product Development and Worldwide Studios Scott Rohde doesn't see the change as so stark. "It's just not necessarily the focus and newsworthy. Last year it was," he told Joystiq during an interview this week. Due to an internal initiative within Sony last year, 3D became a main talking point of its E3 showing – that's simply no longer the case, Rohde said. "A couple years back, even three years ago, because PlayStation is a big pillar in the overall Sony structure, Sony and Kaz [Hirai] came to us and said, 'Hey, we know that you guys can make a big impact by showing a lot of things on 3D.' So we're sort of the fire starter, if you will," Rohde said.Now that the fire's been started, however, it doesn't look like PlayStation has to keep it going. Beyond God of War: Ascension, Sports Champions 2, and LittleBigPlanet Karting, no other 3D titles have been announced for the PlayStation 3. Rohde chalks that up to Sony's internal development studios having autonomy, despite company-wide initiatives last year. "If it's going to enhance an experience, then absolutely. But if it's not core to the experience, then it's not gonna be a focus," he said.But if that's the case, and internal studios aren't embracing 3D on their own, it stands to reason that 3D wasn't the success story Sony hoped for. As you might imagine, Rohde doesn't agree. "I don't look at it that way, because it enhances some games better than it does others," he said. Rohde compared it to 3D in film. "I'll show up and I'll watch some in 3D or some not. Honestly, for me, it almost depends on when movie times are. If it's a convenient movie time, I'll go see the 3D one, right? But it's kind of the same thing – the same thing is kind of occurring with games as well."
Sony's Rohde explains The Last Guardian's E3 absence: 'It just wasn't appropriate for us to give an update'
Sony's E3 2012 press conference was full of surprises. For one, Quantic Dream's new game was unveiled – Beyond – Two Souls. Just like that!More surprising, however, was a game that didn't make an appearance: The Last Guardian. Since being teased in a January 2008 Sony Japan job listing with a single image, the Team Ico-developed game has only been shown by Sony a handful of times. Moreover, the only news we've heard recently on the long in-development project has been worrisome – the game's creative lead, Fumito Ueda, ended his employment at Sony and began working on the game as a contractor. And then in February, Sony revealed that the company's Santa Monica studio was assisting in the development process.SCEA senior VP of product development and worldwide studios, Scott Rohde, assured me in an interview this week that the game's absence from Sony's presser isn't something gamers should be concerned with. "It just wasn't appropriate for us to give an update. That's just how it worked out," Rohde said. Rather than seeing it as a potential sign that the four-plus year project is stagnating, Rohde said that it's absence was a question of time limitations during the press conference and Sony's approach to internal development. "Almost more than any game that Worldwide Studios develops, it's all about the emotion and the experience that's crafted in what that team can deliver. And there's a vision that must be upheld. And until it can be upheld, it's not gonna ship," he said.
Sony's Rohde: proprietary Vita cards 'completely necessary' to combat piracy
Sony's Senior VP of its Worldwide Studios organization, Scott Rohde, tells Gamasutra that long software droughts, as experienced by the PSP, won't be the case with Vita."This time around, we started planning for development of [Vita] about three years ago, in terms of developing for the software, and how we were going to be able to transition," Rohde says. "I think that there were too many droughts of killer titles [for PSP]. There were too many long droughts, and I think we recognized that. And we've put a serious investment into our long-term PS Vita plans, so there's a lot of stuff in the works."Of course, lack of software wasn't the only reason the PSP didn't see the success here it did in Japan -- piracy and the ineffective measures to protect the UMD format from it played a large part. Rohde says it was one of the first concerns, and one that he thinks Sony has addressed. "We needed to have something that would combat piracy from day one, and that's why the cards that you can purchase for the games are in their own proprietary format. And these days, so many people say the word 'proprietary' is a bad word, but it's something that we felt was completely necessary to make sure that people could not pirate these games. I mean, it's a custom security solution on each one of these cartridges. That is something that we are confident will protect us from piracy for the long term."These topics are just a few in the massive interview with Rohde. Hit up the source link below to read the rest.
Interview: Sony's Scott Rohde on PlayStation Move
Sony Worldwide Studios VP Scott Rohde had the onerous task of introducing the first PlayStation Move games at Sony's GDC press conference last night. We caught up with the executive after the show to talk about Sony's plans for exploiting motion control and ask if hardcore gamers should be concerned about the future of the PS3 games library. Our complete interview with Rohde follows: It's obviously going to take internal resources to develop games for PlayStation Move. How can you guarantee that this won't take away from the resources devoted to traditional hardcore games? Scott Rohde: The bottom line is, you know Worldwide Studios is a huge organization. I'm not sure exactly where it sits among other global publishers, but it's right up there. There's a lot of resources put into product development. I'm pretty proud of the roll that we've been on -- with Uncharted 2 kind of sweeping the awards recently. There's plenty of resources to go around. It's our heritage: we're never going to compromise our core; great exclusive games. This is a new initiative to us. Some teams are looking into how they might incorporate motion control into some existing plans; others are totally focused on making the best sequels to the games we all love. It's not something I'm worried about.
Sony Worldwide Studios welcomes Michael Denny, Scott Rohde
Since we love keeping up with all the body-moving inside Sony, we thought we'd alert you to a couple of new faces that'll be helping to make decisions regarding the company's future. Aside from the promotion of Shuhei Yoshida as the new Sony Worldwide Studios head, Sony's Worldwide Studios Europe (apparently one worldwide studio isn't worldwide enough) sees the promotion of Michael Denny (pictured) as new VP. Sony San Diego Studios senior director Scott Rohde also got a promotion to VP of Worldwide Studios America (every country is their own world?). All jokes aside, we'd like to take this opportunity to welcome Denny and Rohde into their new positions and we hope to hear good things from them soon!
Sony announces new studio heads for Europe, America
Sony continues to shuffle the upper-level management of their international studios. Gamasutra reports that the company has appointed Michael Denny (pictured) as the new senior vice president of Sony Worldwide Studios Europe, moving him from his former position as Sony Computer Entertainment Europe VP.Sony has also promoted Scott Rohde, former Sony San Diego Studios senior director, to the position of vice president of Worldwide Studios America. Both Rohde and Denny will manage the internal studios for their regions.These promotions follow last month's appointment of Shuhei Yoshida as president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide, replacing Phil Harrison. GamesIndustry.biz has posted the first part of an interview with Yoshida, detailing the difficult task of filling Phil's shoes.
