Life After Sony

The thing I really enjoyed about my time at Sony was that I was given a lot of freedom to work on cutting edge products. And we developed a number of them, and that was great. But, just as these things happen the development teams get bigger, development times get longer - that's all fine. But I have to say, I like being back in a situation where things don't take so long. That's not to do with Sony, it's just the nature of the console games business.

But you're right, there's a lot of money being made. I'm not alone moving into this space by any means. Neil Young and Simon Jeffrey - both around when I started in the industry back in the nineties. Neil has founded ngmoco and Simon left SEGA to go there. It's a positive thing for the industry I think. The industry is expanding, the ecosystem is expanding and it's about spreading the experience and the insight across. I don't see anything but positives in it, for the industry as a whole. It's about broadening reach of games, both from a development point of view and a consumer one.

I wouldn't have said they were boxed in. To be honest, it's a bit like - maybe this is the wrong analogy - but was the cinema boxed in by the rise of TV? At the time they probably thought they were, but it just broadens and just generally increases the size and scope of the medium. And personally I think the consoles, certainly at the moment, are absolutely providing real cutting edge experiences. The products that other people are working on, in the casual and social spaces, they aren't replacing by any means what's happening on the consoles. They're complimenting it.

There's still lots of great work going on on the consoles. I'm very much looking forward to the motion controllers from both Microsoft and Sony, as you might expect given my background with EyeToy: Play. The Natal games that I've seen look very interesting and I'm sure that Sony will come up with some great stuff, not least because of the motion control heritage they've got at London Studio where I was.

There are some key challenges there for that kind of gaming. One has to be careful that you're not just trying to replicate that kind of fun appeal shown by the Wii titles. At the same time you have to differentiate with the 360 and the PS3 because they're much more powerful machines, without losing that fun appeal from having motion control. Indeed, we learnt really early on in the development of the EyeToy that you have to be careful - it's too physical for traditional long-form gameplay. You aren't going to stand there waving your arms around for two hours - you'd be completely knackered. You have to take a different approach to game design, you have to use a different rhythm and focus to succeed in game design when using that kind of input.

It has to be bullet proof too. You can't risk breaking the player's suspension of disbelief so you don't want to get too leading edge with your technology because then it might break. But then there's a trade off between performance and the cost of goods - a consumer-friendly price point. When I was at Sony, and I think it's still the case, the bundled EyeToy and SingStar games would come in at the top price point but the price of a triple A title - you weren't paying a premium for the hardware. And that worked well - but it only worked because the cost of goods was reasonable. I have no idea what the cost of goods are for those two new systems, but it'll be one of the challenges that I'm sure Sony and Microsoft are on top of. It's not trivial though, to design compelling games for these systems while, at the same time, making sure you've got the price points right.

I do actually. I do think that it's not a fad. I think that maybe at the moment it's the area that has a lot of focus, and that maybe the attention will move away from it in the next year or two, but from a business and consumer point of view I don't think it's going to go away. I think that if anything it's going to grow and become embedded and a fundamental part of how we play and communicate with each other and entertainment ourselves. I wouldn't like to say it's unstoppable, but I see it as a central thread of how interactive entertainment is evolving.

I think there's always going to be a place for the publisher/developer relationship. All this means is that smaller teams with smaller budgets and great ideas can get their products out into the marketplace relatively cheaply. I absolutely don't think it's going to change the fundamental dynamics of the industry.

In all of this I don't think we're talking about a zero-sum game. I think these developments are additive to the market rather than taking anything away from the publishers or the big developers.