No Place Like Sony Home At Edinburgh Interactive

Friday 10th August/... Jamie Macdonald, Vice President of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios Europe along with Paulina Bozek, Executive Producer of SingStar® and Peter Edward, Director of PlayStation® Home Platform Group will address delegates for an opening second day keynote at this year's Edinburgh Interactive festival (EIF07) - the world's only true cultural event.

Now in its fifth year, the Edinburgh Interactive Festival is 'Expanding the Creative Culture of Games'. Newly positioned to reflect video gaming's rise in popularity and influence, helping the festival celebrate the best of video gaming here and overseas will be some of the most influential names across the board in entertainment.

The Sony Computer Entertainment trio will discuss what lies in store for social networking and creative gaming on PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3). Burning issues such as what the next phase of interactive entertainment means to developers, publishers and consumers will be addressed for what will undoubtedly be one of the most anticipated talks of the festival.

Jamie Macdonald joined SCE London Studio in 2001 as its first Director and has been responsible for introducing and establishing such major new global franchises as EyeToy®, SingStar and The Getaway®.

Peter Edward has been with SCEE as a producer since 2000, and now as Director of the Home platform, he has been responsible for the development of the Home end-user experience, for the global presence of both game and non-game brands inside the Home world, and for the coordination of the global activity within the platform.

Paulina Bozek joined SCEE as the producer of SingStar in 2003 and since its release the SingStar series has been one of the key games in bringing social gaming to mainstream audiences.

PlayStation Home, a free service which will be rolled out on PS3 later this year, is a community-based service for the PlayStation Network that will allow users to create their own avatar characters and interact in a virtual world using their PS3s. This unique avatar gets their own virtual apartment that can be decorated with items of the user's choice, including their own personal images. Home will also act as a launching point for players who want to play multiplayer games.

Jamie Macdonald commented: "We are delighted to be part of the Edinburgh Interactive Festival for 2007. The festival has become an important annual event, bringing together creative and commercial aspects of the interactive entertainment industry, and providing a forum to showcase and discuss new trends in our ever evolving industry."

Elsewhere at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival, closer links to the Dare to be Digital computer games design competition will allow visitors to the festival to view some of the innovative ideas for this year's contest. The three winning teams from this year's programme, organised by the University of Abertay Dundee, will be short-listed for a new 'Ones to Watch' Bafta Award, presented at the annual Video Games Awards ceremony in London in October.

Two days of conferences, aimed primarily at the games industry and the press, run in tandem with a screening programme offering the public sneak previews of some of the hottest games and developments in the pipeline. The Screenings Programme have proved phenomenally successful with the public and industry. Tickets for the Screenings are available now for free at Gamestation's Edinburgh store. (134A PRINCES STREET, EDINBURGH, EH2 4AH)

For full details of the festival programme and events, along with details about registration and how to book, visit the Edinburgh Interactive Festival website at www.edinburghinteractivefestival.co.uk.

Ends.

For further information, please contact:

Tom Sargent

Barrington Harvey

Tel: 01462 456780

Fax: 01462 456781

Email: tom.sargent@bhpr.co.uk

About EIF07

The Edinburgh Interactive Festival (EIF) is managed by a committee drawn from all areas of the industry, including publishers, developers and the two industry trade bodies; The Independent Game Developers Association (TIGA) www.tiga.org and the Entertainment & Leisure Software Publishers Association (ELSPA) www.elspa.com.

PlayStation, SingStar, EyeToy, Getaway are registered trademarks, and PS3 is a trademark of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.