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Smedley: PS3 has "massive advantage over PC" for MMOs
GameDaily landed an interview with SOE president John Smedley in the wake of the recent corporate shuffle that moved SOE into the PlayStation family. Smedley said a lot more this time than he did when he spoke with WarCry last week. He commented on the departure of Sony Pictures head honcho Yair Landau, saying that it's only a coincidence that the SOE move happened at the same time. He also suggested that the move is a bit like "coming home," since EverQuest was originally developed under SCEA's banner.Most interestingly, though, he said that while SOE is committed to multi-platform releases (read: PC and PS3), he believes the PS3 has a "massive advantage" over the PC for developers and publishers of MMOs. This is because because the system is "a stable platform where every customer has an online box ... and we don't have to worry about graphics cards or anything like that." That this is an advantage is true; that's why a lot of the recent growth in the industry is in web-based games that will run on any hardware (like Sherwood). But it'll be interesting to see how The Agency and the DC Comics MMO do on the PS3.[Via PS3 Fanboy]
Sony Pictures exec leaving to start game company
Yair Landau, a 17-year veteran at Sony and head of its digital division at Sony Pictures Entertainment, is leaving the company in April to start his own game and animation studio. Landau plans to develop cross-media content and will continue to have involvement with the studio as an executive producer on Sony Animation's Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Landau also oversaw SOE's growth, which coincidentally became part of Sony Computer Entertainment today, with games like EverQuest. Landau is expected to make announcements about what his company is actually up to once he leaves Sony next month.
