EA founder on PlayStation Home: what’s the point?
Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, doesn’t get what Sony’s trying to do with PlayStation Home. Are they trying to compete with Second Life, or are they trying to bag the tech-savvy gamers who like to have an active virtual social life?
Either way, it doesn’t sound like he has high hopes for it.
Trip Hawkins, founder of Electronic Arts, doesn’t get what Sony‘s trying to do with PlayStation Home.
Are they trying to compete with Second Life, or are they trying to bag the tech-savvy gamers who like to have an active virtual social life?
What I can’t really tell yet about the various announcements [Sony has] made about online and what they’re doing so far, I can’t tell whether they’re going more towards this mass market idea – the way I’m describing this ‘omni-market’ – or if they’re being lured into essentially trying to compete with [World of] Warcraft or Second Life.
Either way, it doesn’t sound like he has high hopes for it.
My own personal opinion is: if Sony makes Home feel too much like a Warcraft environment, they’re just never going to create the kind of audience size that you’re going to see Nintendo and Microsoft create.
Because clearly Nintendo is orientated towards the mass audience, and even Microsoft has learnt a lot of valuable lessons from things like Xbox Live Arcade
Now in case you were wondering why he compared Home with WoW (of all things), he gave a few clarifications:
The only reason I noted WoW and HOME together is that they are both from hardcore game companies with a hardcore bias. Hence they both care about 3D graphics and immersion based on audiovisual realism, and their concept of “social” is to be gameplay competitors online.
By contrast, what I call the Omni Consumer is more socially motivated and is more likely to adopt technology that is simpler and more convenient and that they know their friends can handle, plus the Omni Consumer may be seeking social benefits like making a date in real life.
Phil Harrison would have a thing or two to tell Trip Hawkins, you betcha.
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