Sony, unlike Silicon Knights, is pledging their support to Epic. Speaking with Game Informer, Sony’s Head of Worldwide Studios, Phil Harrison, said that, “If we’re honest, we didn’t do enough of a good job supporting them and getting them the tools and technology early enough.” Harrison goes on to detail how Sony has given them assistance in the form of a crack squad of engineers who will help the optimization of UE3 for the PS3’s cell technology.

Sony’s support comes with great timing, following the lawsuit filed by UE3 licensee, Silicon Knights (SK). SK has filed the suit with Epic over the alleged breach of contract concerning the production of a useful UE3 engine. See our previous post to learn more.

It is not that surprising that Sony comes to the aid of Epic. Afterall, at the E3 2007 Sony Conference Epic announced that Unreal Tournament 3 would be a timed exclusive for the PS3. If there is one thing that Sony needs it is exclusives. Well, that and a real fucking price drop.

Chufmoney

By, like, alot. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but LittleBigPlanet has officially taken the number 2 spot for games that make me want a PS3. That makes it… two whole games that I actually want for the system.

The graphics aren’t blow your mind amazing; however, as you watch the trailer (with music from The Go! Team), they have a sort of slow burn, where you think, this looks good, that looks good, holy crap this all looks so good. The interaction between the 4 players is especially interesting, and, dare I say it, compelling? This is the first time I think I’ve been excited and jealous for a PS3 game, and it’s a palpable excitement that similar to, but not on par with, the excitement when I see Mass Effect and think about how close it is to release. This may not be the critical killer app that Sony needs after so much bad PR, but it sent me from well into negative interest territory to positive in about 2 minutes of footage. No wonder it looks so good, and has such interesting physics; apparently it’s made by the team who created RagDoll Kung-Fu. More importantly, the implementation of user created “plots” into a youtube-esque searchable and filter-able database is bordering on brilliant. Yes, it’s an idea appropriated from youtube, and from Miis, and from PC FPSs that have allowed user generated content for ages, but if Gears of War taught us anything, it’s that clever recombination and refinement of previous concepts can equal an amazing experience. It’s not worth 600 dollars, but again, fuck if it doesn’t excite me.

Playstation Home though… man.

I hope they talk about LittleBigPlanet after showing Sony Home to give people something to cleanse their palettes with. It looks like they shoehorned Poser into the PS3 and hired a bunch of programmers from Second Life. From what we’ve seen so far, it’s the quintessential example of Sony not getting the spirit of what makes things like Live and Miis compelling, and trying to co-opt some of the ancilliary aspects. The avatars lack, for lack of a better term, character (and that dancing makes me die a little inside), something Miis have in spades (which, to be fair, is partly due to the hardware limitations of the Wii). Meanwhile, the collectible objects, entitlements, pieces of crap etc that they’re allowing people to gain from PS3 games lacks the simple functionality and overall numerical versus unique gain that Achievements bring to the table. Achievements are compelling as an aspect of the community that Live brings to the table, and part of their overwhelming advantage here is the year or more (depending on when Home actually releases) that gamers have had to build their online identities on the 360. Home doesn’t seem like enough. It has some interesting ideas though, like the arcade games within the Home online environment (and the wii-sports-riffic pool and bowling). I guess we’ll have to see where it goes from here. And how many times it gets delayed.

Oh, and Sony showed 1up Killzone. They didn’t sound especially impressed, but they also implied that it’s very early. So, there you go. I’ll try to post more thoughts throughout the day as the lone editor who isn’t actually at GDC. Ironic, no?

-Aegies

Occasionally (by which I mean virtually every time anyone working for the company talks to anyone whose writing something down), I feel as though Sony believes the dietary needs of their constituency (which would be you and I, dear reader) to be on par with that of a mushroom. I don’t know that I’m touching on any new ground when I say this, but Sony’s PR message is the stuff 1984 is made of. It’s as if some divine being was playing a joke on existence when the very day that an interview with Phil Harrison includes the statement that Sony needs to be more open, one of the more popular gaming news/gossip sites is briefly excommunicated for deigning to reveal information outside the scope of corporate PR’s iron-fisted media plan.

In many ways, I feel sorry for the people at Sony that have to be the talking heads for the corporate message; as the comic implies, it often seems like they’re selling something less than desirous as though it were the cure for cancer. It’s unfortunate, because with the proper marketing message, the PS3 would be in a completely different boat than it is right now. 600 dollars is a lot of scrilla, to be sure, but it would be swallowed with far more ease if you didn’t feel as though the slime Sony thinks it needs to coat the console with to sell it would get all over your hands and clothes when you sidled up to take a drink off that mother. Perhaps I’m being desperately naive, but I don’t think that it’s too late for Sony to make a game of this console war, though they’ve made misstep after misstep. Regardless of your console allegiances, should you have any, it would be difficult to really put forth that fierce competition isn’t a benefit to most gamers. I would just prefer that competition be on the merits of gameplay experiences (under which I do include graphics), rather than the skill of their marketing departments.

I would write more, but I’m fucking exhausted. And I’m barreling toward finals at an alarming rate.

-Aegies