Interview: John Hight on PSN’s demos, pricing, and future prospects

Interview: John Hight on PSN's demos, pricing, and future prospects - Image 1 SCEA‘s John High was grabbed for an interview recently to give his two cents on the PlayStation 3’s growing PSN service. Among other details, Hight explained PSN’s apparent lack of game demos, and their plans for this 2008. The Interview details are readable over in the full article.

Interview: John High on PSN's demos, pricing, and future prospects - Image 1Sony Computer Entertainment America’s (SCEA) John Hight was called in recently for an interview regarding the PlayStation 3’s PSN service.

The Q&A session touched on a couple of matters including game pricing, demos, and potential downloadable game size.

Hight started off the interview with an explanation of how he saw PSN as an avenue for young and aspiring developers to debut their creations. “I thought weÂ’re back in the same cool space as the early 90s, where kids can take their own savings,” Hight said, “or, as creator Jon Mak did, work on this thing on his own, and find a place to publish it.”

Hight further noted that PSN wasn’t about swamping its subscribers with sheer quantity. Rather, each of the online service’s plethora of downloadables would give its players a very special, unique experience. Hight also explained PSN’s seemingly sparse selection of game demos. This was intentional given that a brisk demo may give players a wrong impression of the title’s depth.

He cited Blast Factor, which featured a demo release. Hight explained that while a good number of people played the demo, not quite as many actually downloaded the full game. “I think the demo kind of hurt it in a way and people got satiated,” said Hight. Regarding PSN’s pricing, Hight explained that the this depends heavily on the titles being loaded:

Some of these games are made for a very specific audience, as a book would be or a fine bottle of wine or a music soundtrack. Some of these are going to be pop hits that everybody has to have.

Moving, on Hight did make some interesting notes regarding the Sony’s future plans for PSN. For starters, more games are being lined up for this year as compared to 2007, although it’s unlikely that current PSN games will be getting sequels. Also being planned in the near future are even bigger downloadable titles – Hight mentions 2 GB as the higher so far – and a focus on cooperative multiplayer matches. 

That’s the lowdown on this recent interview with Hight. Those interested in reading the full details will want to visit the source link.

Via MTV Multiplayer Blog

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