Studio Line

Until last year, Jamie MacDonald was best known as the founding director of SCE London Studio - which in turn was best known for producing innovative titles such as EyeToy and Singstar. But in late 2005, SCE Worldwide Studios was formed, and MacDonald was named vice president of the new European division.

Arguably, it's not the easiest time to be a Sony executive, with the PS3 launch, the threat of stock shortages and the delayed arrival of the console in Europe to contend with. There's also the issue of the "paradigm shift" which MacDonald believes the industry is currently experiencing, as he explained in his speech at GDC London yesterday.

GamesIndustry.biz caught up with MacDonald after the speech to find out more, and to discuss the issues of digital distribution, online gaming and whether Sony has any lessons to learn from its rivals.

Jamie MacDonald: The key point is that the games industry is facing two distinct challenges. One is the increasing cost of production and the implications of that for developers large and small. But also, the fundamental shift in going from a package-centric world into a network-centric world, and what that means in terms of product delivery and service provision - but most importantly, the new revenue streams and opportunities.

So, essentially, I was saying that all developers need to come to terms with that, and change the way they do business. Small developers must come to terms with the fact they're not going to be able to be a vertically integrated development operation any more; they're going to have to work with other, larger developers as specialists.

Larger developers are going to have to come to terms with the fact that they can no longer have teams which produce a disc-based title and then forget about it. In the network-centric world, release is just the beginning of one's relationship with the consumer, not the end. We need to embrace change and exploit those opportunities which the network-centric world presents.

You seemed to be suggesting that the industry is now going through a bigger shift than it's ever experienced before...

I would say so, yes. From an organisational point of view and from a revenue point of view, and a content delivery point of view. They're all horrible expressions, but I'd say it's a paradigm shift, it really is.

Going back to the 16-bit era, certainly for PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2, content's been delivered on disc and that's it. In five years' time, my belief is that the majority of content won't be delivered on disc - and that has many implications for developers and the way we organise our industry.

It also brings great opportunities, because it means you can touch your consumer in many different ways and at different times; it's not just a one-off relationship where a consumer buys a disc from the store.

In terms of object sales, episodic content, in-game advertising and merchandising, there are many, many opportunities to have a relationship with the consumer - which is a great challenge to us as developers, because that's not what we're used to. It's that service provision which, again, is not something we've done in the past.

You mentioned there that you don't believe content will come on discs in five years...

It will do, but at the moment, probably 99.9 per cent of content comes on disc. My supposition is that in five years time that will be the tipping point. But these are all forecasts. I just know it's happening; exactly when, I'm not sure.

To be honest, I think content will always come on disc to some extent. For example, you can still buy music on vinyl and some people like that. I think there still might be people in 10, 20 years time who for some reason still like having their content on disc.

Why launch a new format like Blu-ray if we're already so close to the point where most content is being distributed digitally?

The life cycle of the console, historically, is what, five or six years? And that's the timescale that we're talking about. The thing about Blu-ray discs - and this is the crucial thing - is that not any time soon will you be able to download the amount of content you need for a big triple-A title down a typical 2, 4 meg broadband connection. That's not going to happen now or in the next year.

So Blu-ray is absolutely needed for the high definition content in the games that we'll be producing. The network-enabled world, for the initial period, is much more about updated content, object sales, but also titles which are not these big blockbuster titles... More short-form gaming.

On the subject of networking, would you agree that Sony has lagged behind Microsoft in this generation with regard to getting consumers playing games online?

If you have a look at the numbers, especially in the United States, far more people have played online on PS2 than they have with the competition. So, no, I wouldn't really accept that.

But, for example, if you asked gamers to name an online service, wouldn't the majority be more likely to say Xbox Live than mention Sony's service?

The approach that Sony took with PS2 was really much more exploratory. We left it to the individual publishers to decide what kind of consumer offering they wanted to bring in the network space.

PlayStation 3 is network-enabled out of the box. We are now in a broadband era in a way that we weren't five or six years ago, and our view at Sony is that now is the time to really embrace the network role.

By the time the PS3 launches, Microsoft will have had a 12 month head start - but you'll have had 12 months to learn from what they've done. What lessons will you take away?

To be honest, and I'm not just saying this, but we concentrate on what we want to do and what we think will be a compelling consumer proposition. We don't respond to the opposition.

So you're not worried about Microsoft?

Worried's the wrong word. I think we'd be foolish not to take account of our competition; we do take account, and we always have done. but from our point of view, it's about creating great platforms and great software to be played on those. We've shown with PlayStation 1 and PlayStation 2 that if you do that, the consumer likes it.