Note: this post contains rumors which are unsourced, because they’re rumors. While I wouldn’t post about them unless i was fairly certain they had some credence, they should not be taken as fact, and should be approached with the appropriate amount of skepticism. The exception to this is the fact that the three studios in question did blackball EGM/1UP (as well as a number of other publishers in Europe as well), and Sony did fuck up last year and try to bully Kotaku into pulling a story.

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Amidst his blanket calls for an end to all previews prior to a game’s completion, a demand that will never be met, a demand which is ridiculous and has rightly been ridiculed, and a demand that was apparently forgotten long enough to give one of EGM/1UP’s biggest competitors and exclusive hands on, it’s easy to miss some of the things Dyack had to say that do make sense, and are important.
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So if you look at the navigation bar on the site banner, you might notice that we’ve added a new link: podcasts. We did our first one today, and while it was a hell of a lot of work (as I also coded the page for them today as well) it was also a lot of fun. We hope to be able to do it on a bi-weekly basis at least. Check it out and let us know what you think in the comments. And I apologize now for the echo; it was a technical issue that will hopefully be resolved next time around. As for me, it’s sleepy time.

-Aegies

Jack Tretton, the new SCEA President defended the launch of the PS3 and the future of SCEA in the recent interview he had with EGM.  When questioned about the PS3 price he actually made me think twice about if 600$ really is too much, stating,  ”if we’re asking you to pay $600 for the high-end PS3, I would point out” that “you are making an investment” for 10 years.  I hope he means what he says.  I want to believe that the PS3 will be around for many years.  And that in future years the PS3 will have a number of third party titles that push me into buying the system.  I will watch wearily about the staying power of the PS3.  Though this launch has been overall disappointing to me I do have the SCEA history to look back upon.  They supported (and still are) the PS2 for six years and counting.  Over such an extended period of time I have acquired over 50 titles for PS2.  If Sony really will back the system for this long it gives me hope that they will develop the titles that could provide the staying power.  They damn well better.

Regarding the Blu-ray format and the PS3, Tretton, stated, “I don’t think we can single-handedly drive the Blu-ray format….Blu-ray is a great value for consumers as a movie format, but most importantly, [it’s of value] to the gamers.  Blu-ray does wonderful things for the development community…that’s something that no other machine offers.”  I do not know that anyone here at ESG would swallow any of the above points concerning Blu-ray.  Besides higher content capacity I see no advantages to the Blu-Ray format for gamers or developers.  What details am I ignorant to that would make this format a distinct advantage to gamers or developers?  It seems like Blu-ray would make for slower load times, but that is just a guess.  I hope SCEA can focus on pushing the PS3 as a video game console rather than a Blu-ray player.  We need games for this machine, dammit!

I am not a Sony fan-boy. Nay, if you read previous posts you can see the many time I deplored Sony for the things they have done and the PS3 in general.  Sony is a corporation that above all wants our money.  So is Nintendo and Microsoft.  But if Sony really means it when they say that they will back the system for many years than I might purchase one….in two years.  I am still waiting for an exclusive besides Killzone 2 that pushes me into Sony’s Next-Gen arms.

 Chufmoney