More on the Phil Harrison interview at DICE

Phil Harrison sitting down with N’Gai Croal over at D.I.C.E in Las Vegas was definitely one of the highlights of the event. Since the range of topics covered by in the interview is quite wide, what we’ll do is list down some of Phil’s answers that we feel can cause some folks to raise eyebrows, and then either feel more positive or more cynical when it comes to all things Sony.

We selected these statements because we believe that they’re intriguing enough that each of them could generate pages worth discussion and speculation. Below are Mr. Harrison’s words.

Attracting a wider audience:

• We are developing some things that we think are going to stimulate the usage of PlayStation 3 beyond hardcore gamers and into wider audiences.
• We are developing things which we hope are going to stimulate the use of PlayStation 3 beyond hardcore audiences. Something we’ve developed in Europe is “social gaming”, we’ve had great success with Singstar and Buzz, Singstar over 7 million units shipped so far. I did bring a PS3 with a couple of demos on it so that if N’Gai asked boring questions we could sit and play Motorstorm for a while.

Read the rest of this article after the Jump.

Phil Harrison sitting down with N’Gai Croal over at D.I.C.E in Las Vegas was definitely one of the highlights of the event. Since the range of topics covered by in the interview is quite wide, what we’ll do is list down some of Phil’s answers that we feel can cause some folks to raise eyebrows, and then either feel more positive or more cynical when it comes to all things Sony.

We selected these statements because we believe that they’re intriguing enough that each of them could generate pages worth discussion and speculation. Below are Mr. Harrison’s words.

Attracting a wider audience:

• We are developing some things that we think are going to stimulate the usage of PlayStation 3 beyond hardcore gamers and into wider audiences.
• We are developing things which we hope are going to stimulate the use of PlayStation 3 beyond hardcore audiences. Something we’ve developed in Europe is “social gaming”, we’ve had great success with Singstar and Buzz, Singstar over 7 million units shipped so far. I did bring a PS3 with a couple of demos on it so that if N’Gai asked boring questions we could sit and play Motorstorm for a while.

PS3 meeting PSP meeting PSN:

• This year weÂ’ll be adding some functionality to the PSP that will unify our approach
• There’s enough on PS3 and PSP to keep me entertained. I played Loco Roco‘s next version on the way here.
• The software of PS3 is not a fixed specification when you buy the console. It’s the start of a long relationship that’ll evolve over time. We have an aggressive strategy of adding software and functionality over time. Look at PS3. The services we have for online content today are free of charge. We will continue to refine, add functionality, add features not just for developer experience but gamers as well.

Answering criticism:

• By what measure is PS3 launch not successful? We had people line up in three continents. We sell everything we ship into marketplace. We have supplied into the market more products in Japan, Asia, and US than we did for the launches of PS1 or PS2, and with more software. What’s wrong with this picture?

On developing for the PS3:

• PlayStation One was the first platform to ship with an integrated library and structure — 3D0 had done that but PS1 was the first in a broad sense, and the developers all wanted access to the metal, to the chip set. And so with PS2 we gave them access to the metal. And they said, no, no, we want abstraction, we want libraries. I think Dave Jaffe put it well: “You can have a dev environment that does everything for you but it will abstract you so much that you won’t be able to get the full power of the machine.”
• We can always provide better tools, better documentation, better service. It’s a myth that we provide documentation in Japanese. It’s not true. We did in the past in the original days of PlayStation One. But key parts of the PS3 were created in English speaking parts of the world. CELL, in Austin, Texas.

For more on the interview, here are links leading to various coverages of the interview, visit them at your leisure: Gamasutra, Wired News, IGN, and Gamespot.