Sony funding 'about 40' download titles for PS3 - Harrison

Sony's Phil Harrison says the company is already working with developers on "about 40" exclusive titles that fit into its e-Distribution Initiative (EDI) - the PlayStation 3 equivalent of Xbox Live Arcade.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz' Rob Fahey as part of an interview being serialised on semi-official Sony blog Three Speech, Harrison said that EDI had been "a call to action to the development community to encourage them to create games specifically for us, that we would fund, that we would publish, in the online sense of the word, and distribute online".

"We're developing about 40 products that fit that strategy right now," he added. Sony presented one of these titles - flOw - for the first time at the Tokyo Game Show, with others like Calling All Cars (David Jaffe's title, formerly known as Criminal Crackdown) also generating a lot of interest.

"My strategy was to encourage developers to push the machine technically, creatively, artistically - to innovate in lots of different ways. But don't be restricted by ghettoising games into a particular genre, or a particular display mechanic, because what we've seen on other systems tend to be retro 2D games, and we're pushing the 3D capabilities of the PlayStation 3. Plus, the fact that every PS3 has a hard disk drive means that we're not restricted by the size of the download, and that has a huge impact on the kind of game design that you can do," he continued.

"We're seeing an emerging strength in developers creating games specifically for downloadable content. We're seeing that as a really interesting way of stimulating creativity, experimentation... And it makes me feel as excited as about the games that we saw at the beginning of PS1, when there was a lot of really interesting innovation happening in the marketplace. I think we'll see that on PlayStation 3 as well."