You might have noticed an OPM feature that ran on 1UP this morning chatting with president of Sony Worldwide Studios Phil Harrison. He's the man responsible for overseeing all of the first-party game coming out of the company, from Warhawk to the next-generation efforts from the Shadow of the Colossus team.
Though the interview's from March's Game Developers Conference, contained within are some interesting comments about Sony's plans for PlayStation 3. When asked whether their online service will be similar to Microsoft's:
"I suppose you could think of it in a linear way: On one side, you've got Microsoft or AOL, with their "walled garden" approach. And on the other extreme, you've got Google or the open Internet, with uncontrolled, unregulated access to all. And where do we sit on that continuum? Well, it's definitely more the [Google] way than the [Microsoft] way. Having said that, we will obviously obey and be governed by ratings organizations, whether [they regulate] films or games, depending on the content, all around the world. And we need to be sensitive to the privacy protections of players. All those things that you'd expect will clearly be maintained. But, beyond that, I want innovation to be proven by experimenting with new games. You know, shelf space is infinite online. There are no restrictions. There are no practical impediments to putting anything up there. I think that's great for our players, that they can get experiences that they wouldn't get only at retail. [Online] is not going to replace retail, but it enriches the experience, it grows the market, and I think everybody wins."
