SCEA’s John Hight announces PlayStation 3 to have episodic games

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) director John Hight announced episodic content for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) in the Independent Games Summit at the Game Developers Conference (GDC). A little background on Mr. Hight: He is responsible for some of the big changes in Sony such as the Santa Monica Sony team that produced the first PlayStation Network game BlastFactor and signing thatgamecompany which developed the game flOw.

The release of these episodic content is slated for this year around mid-summer. There are no announcements regarding what the games will be although John Hight has hinted that some will be more like interactive TV while other releases will be taking existing content and spreading it out a bit. In the end, he also mentioned the fact that some fairly small games which will become available in the future may have hundreds of hours of play. This sounds like more value for your money if they can pull it off.

This move is also like a direct challenge to the Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA). It might be that SCEA is looking to break the stranglehold that Microsoft has had in the online console gaming market. Whether this will be a success or not depends on the quality of the releases. If it does take off, we can expect Microsoft to strike back with new innovations. Thus, the console wars continue.

Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) director John Hight announced episodic content for the PlayStation 3 (PS3) in the Independent Games Summit at the Game Developers Conference (GDC). A little background on Mr. Hight: He is responsible for some of the big changes in Sony such as the Santa Monica Sony team that produced the first PlayStation Network game BlastFactor and signing thatgamecompany which developed the game flOw.

The release of these episodic content is slated for this year around mid-summer. There are no announcements regarding what the games will be although John Hight has hinted that some will be more like interactive TV while other releases will be taking existing content and spreading it out a bit. In the end, he also mentioned the fact that some fairly small games which will become available in the future may have hundreds of hours of play. This sounds like more value for your money if they can pull it off.

This move is also like a direct challenge to the Xbox 360’s Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA). It might be that SCEA is looking to break the stranglehold that Microsoft has had in the online console gaming market. Whether this will be a success or not depends on the quality of the releases. If it does take off, we can expect Microsoft to strike back with new innovations. Thus, the console wars continue.