Kutaragi heads new Sony-Namco Bandai venture

It is no secret that Sony‘s relationship with third party developers isn’t the best and smoothest of relationships. During the time when the PlayStation 3 was still boxed up, there were some reports that Sony was pressuring devs to release games immediately even though they were not yet entirely finished.

Regardless if those are true or not, Sony came up with a decision that will put away those hushed talks for good. The company recently teamed up with Japan’s Namco Bandai to put up a new venture called as Cellius. The main task of the new company is to develop games that will exploit the advanced capabilities of PS3’s Cell processor.

What’s most interesting about this is that Mr. Ken Kutaragi himself will lead the new company. While he will continue serving as chairman of SCE, Kutaragi will also man the executive director post for Cellius. Furthermore, Cellius is 51% owned by Namco Bandai and the remaining ownership belongs to Sony. Also, it was mentioned by one Sony representative that Cellius will also be designing software for regular PCs, handheld devices, and mobile phones.

Well, this could mean big for Sony. The PSP for example, as great as it is, is kind of lacking in the games department. Nokia on the other hand, has been threatening to re-renter the games market. But more importantly, we all know that main competitor Microsoft has been big lately on the connection between X360 and operating system Vista.

There’s only one thing we could derive from this development. It is as if Sony is telling others to “bring it.” And in the end, this is going to be good for all of us.

It is no secret that Sony‘s relationship with third party developers isn’t the best and smoothest of relationships. During the time when the PlayStation 3 was still boxed up, there were some reports that Sony was pressuring devs to release games immediately even though they were not yet entirely finished.

Regardless if those are true or not, Sony came up with a decision that will put away those hushed talks for good. The company recently teamed up with Japan’s Namco Bandai to put up a new venture called as Cellius. The main task of the new company is to develop games that will exploit the advanced capabilities of PS3’s Cell processor.

What’s most interesting about this is that Mr. Ken Kutaragi himself will lead the new company. While he will continue serving as chairman of SCE, Kutaragi will also man the executive director post for Cellius. Furthermore, Cellius is 51% owned by Namco Bandai and the remaining ownership belongs to Sony. Also, it was mentioned by one Sony representative that Cellius will also be designing software for regular PCs, handheld devices, and mobile phones.

Well, this could mean big for Sony. The PSP for example, as great as it is, is kind of lacking in the games department. Nokia on the other hand, has been threatening to re-renter the games market. But more importantly, we all know that main competitor Microsoft has been big lately on the connection between X360 and operating system Vista.

There’s only one thing we could derive from this development. It is as if Sony is telling others to “bring it.” And in the end, this is going to be good for all of us.