Phil Harrison's Keynote

I'm being thrown out, so tidying and pics to come in an update. As ever: only my notes, not verbatim, but you'll get the gist.

Little Big Planet looks like it might be the game of '08, by the way. It's got so much bloody charm, I think more than one or two hardened developers had a tear of joy in their eye.

Phil Harrison keynote:

Game 3.0

Today I’m going to talk about Game 3.0. Let me explain what I mean by this. There was a magazine cover late last year – a pivotal moment in the internet age, I think: you were Time Magazine’s person of the year, representing the democratizing of the internet, you were in control. This is really what a lot of people refer to when they talk about web 2.0. It’s not a standard, not a set of rules. It’s a philosophy, something Tim O’reilly established when he first came up with this term.

Since then the community has determined what web 2.0 characterizes, what applications it embodies. These are the products and services that we use every day in our lives, empowering audiences through the internet.

We want to start a movement with Game 2.0. We want to define with this means for our industry as we move it forward for the next ten years. Game 1.0 was all about the disconnected console. The static disk or cart experience. The entirety defined by the developer whose game was contained on that bit of plastic. Game 2.0 was the connected console or pc, but still with static game content on the disk.

Now the era that we’re moving into is Game 3.0, all about the connected device, empowered by audiences and dynamic content, built on open standards and powered by active communities. Here are a couple of apps that best rep this movement, and here are some phrases that we want to use to explain this. It’s all about social interaction, content creation, community, collaboration, customization, emergent entertainment empowered by the audience at the center of the entertainment experience.

Here’s the first thing I’d like to share: a service, not a product, a service called Home. It runs directly off the PS media bar. You can see we’ve added a Home icon to the media bar: here’s Scott, the Home producer to talk about it.

[Scott demos]

We’re launching into the online world and connecting to the Home universe. This is what everyone will get when they land in their Home. You call get a central lounge. It’s 3D. You can customize your character. You can bring up the virtual PSP which allows you to jump to various features… you can buy additional clothing, and games will unlock content that will allow you to have a specific Heavenly Sword tee for instance. This is a 3D social networking service, allowing you to express your personality... you can edit your face... [Alice: very like Second Life, this!]... so rather than spend a great deal of time on face customization, let’s look at presets.

[Alice: Unfortunately all just versions of the same pasty-faced bloke, but still – I’m sure they haven’t forgotten gender and skin colour..]

Dynamic adverts can pushed into the Home central lounge. Banners, ads and latest games can be downloaded this way. Look, here are other PS3 users communicating with each other... you can use voice and text chat, plus animations.

[Alice: Scott meant to say "Hi", but it came out "Ho", much to the amusement of the audience...]

So … you can play some games. Let’s go check out more public spaces. Here’s the games lounge: created to create opportunities for social interaction. Here are pool tables and a bowling alley. Here’s video streaming in. Here’s the pool table – you can walk up and join, it’s all embedded and physics based. It all works. Here, how about bowling…

[Scott gutters it, audience laughs]

Here are some arcade machines. You can play original games, and download extra games... [Scott crashes the helicopter, audience laughs, there’s a pattern here :o)]... you can play this through your first-person perspective.

Let’s go to the world map. We’ve talked about public spaces, let’s talk about private spaces. Everyone has their own private apartment that they can visit, customize and trick out. Your buddy list can come into your apartment. Let’s do a bit of interior design. Nice hearts there, Scott.

[Scott chose hearts wallpaper]

If you’re a particular fan of a certain game, you can have say Resistance Fall of Man wallpaper. This can become your clan’s clubroom. They can come back to communicate, share and collaborate. All the communications function works everywhere in the home. You can download additional furniture – free, or premium items, or linked to games. The furniture is physics based, you can pile it all in the corner if you so wish.

Let’s put a picture frame up – you can take any content from your ps3 disk drive, and it can be displayed in your frame. Any visitors to your apartment will see this same content, streamed to them. Here, let’s put up a slide, in the picture frame.

[Avatar Scott points to a slide, and salutes. Audience laughs]

Let’s customize the experience with user created content. [Phil takes a pic of us] I take the memory stick out of the camera, [Sony, of course], and I can upload this picture... heh, I just put it in the wrong playstation. Oops. Ok, just imagine you’re all on the wall there.

Let’s go check out a tricked out apartment... here’s one you can extend the space by buying a bigger location and getting more furniture. It’s got multiple levels, here’s a pool table in your own space. You can go on the outdoor deck, and here are some friends having a party in our space here. Music that we play from our HDD can be streamed to other users in this space, and also video. Let’s put a Bravia TV in the apartment too. Here we’ll run the Casino Royale trailer, and we have proximity audio so things get louder as you move towards them. Just like in the real world, your Sony Bravia is a very reliable device [as they throw it down the stairs]. [Audience chuckles]

Let’s go to the Home Cinema. This is a movie theatre, in 3D. Here you can see content from motion picture studios, as well as from users themselves. Down there we have Spider Man 3 running, but to the left, you have user selectable spaces where you can get the content you want to watch when you want to watch it.

[Alice: communcal TV-watching! Fantastic!]

What we are able to do here. We’re working with Grouper [?], one of the leading tech providers for aggregating user generated content into this space. We can also have specific movies or television shows... you can go in with your friends, and you can chat around the content.

But Home is not just about Sony brands and Sony games, it’s a much wider network of connected spaces. We want to show you what this would look like... we can have zones dedicated to publishers, or developers, or titles... and this will extend to non-game brands as well. We’ll have clothing company zones, coffee company, magazines... you get the idea.

Let’s look at a multibrand publisher. We build these spaces using Maya, and we’ll give you the SDKs to develop to this. The way you want to design it is entirely up to you. You can build a temple to Kratos. That’s great, we’d like to see that kind of thing, and we encourage you to explore your own creativity. These are easy ways to build socialization around your game brands.

The final part of the home experience is the Hall of Fame. This is a brand new experience for the playstation network that we’d like to share today. You can customize your physical environment to rep the trophies you’ve been given to show your achievements within certain games. You can show your 3d trophies, and your friends will be able to see how skilled you are. Trophies can animate, they can have embedded video… you can also bring up all the other games you’ve played through the trophy browser. You can see the trophy and game artwork; let’s have a look at a few...

It’s not just about the games you own, but about the entire network of games available to the ps3.

[Screenshot of trophy room, looks like Senate in Star Wars, trophies extending for miles. Audience: “whoaaaa”].

Right, back to the crossmedia bar. Let me summarize:

Home is a unique, 3D realtime community, it’s free to use, free to download, and you can extend the experience there are public and private spaces for every user. We’ll allow you to have pets in the future, and more sophisticated clothing. This is all extendable through free and premium items added by you, game developers, and ourselves. It’s a very easy platform to develop for. The large beta starts next month, and the service is anticipated to launch in the fall of 2007. We look forward to working with you to build out this fantastic opportunity.

Let’s talk about a game that we think embodies game 3.0.

Singstar. You’re familiar with this; it’s delivered over 200m songs into people’s homes. I’m going to focus on the online part of Singstar on ps3. Singstar live tells you about the new songs added to the store, how many new people have joined the network for you to meet and chat with. You can go into your profile, and see what songs your friends are singing. Your mates can comment on your recent performances. The SingStore identifies the songs you want to download and sing.

I can preview the song which streams from the central server... I can add it to my shopping cart, and off I go. You’ll note the song is downloading in the background, which is a good feature. [Audience laughs]. Using the EyeToy I can upload videos to the network, and have people rank and rate them. There are downloadable wallpapers. Etc. This comes out for playstation 3 in May/June for PAL, and later in the year for the US. We’re looking forward to working with the record industries to expand the store.

Playstation EDGE: here’s an announcement relevant to developers. We’ll be sharing later today something we’re defining as playstation edge. [Details of where to go]

Next up is another brand new product that we’re very pleased to share with you here. This is Little Big Planet. Here’s some of their previous work: remember Rag-Doll Kung Fu? This was a small, energetic indie released to great appeal and great acclaim. We loved this game. We wanted to take them onto playstation 3, so they formed a company and they’ve been working on an amazing product for us: Mark Healy and Alex [Evis?].

Alex: this game is all about creativity. We’re going to show you two things. How easy it is to make stuff in this game, and how that stuff integrates into a console experience. This is our character... he can emote, act, etc by wiggling the sticks around. Everything in this game is made of real world materials. Here’s Mark making a block of wood. You can find objects, here’s a cog, and because it all runs under physics, it moves. Here’s us adding the cog to the wood. Here’s my little dude... you can change the look of anything you make. Here are stickers – images I’ve imported from EyeToy, or my hard drive, and I can stick this stuff to any surface. There’s no limit!

[Alice: Green scribbles make grass... the orange gets a pair of eyes... it’s awesome]

We call this communal creativity and we think this’ll be a bit part of game 3.0. What you’ve seen us do is use very simple creative tools that let us make these highly tactile environments. You can make an entire game level with this stuff, if you sit down for a bit... here’s one we made earlier.

[Alice: It’s GORGEOUS. This is fantastically innovative, and fun looking. Zonk leans over and whispers, this is the single reason to buy the PS3. I’m inclined to agree – this game is so much more than a game. Developers almost get a standing ovation.]

Phil: when you’ve created your masterpiece, you want to share it with others around the world, let’s look at how that works.

[Video]

Little Big Planet will be debuting in early 2008.

You’ve seen today the industry is on the threshold of a new era of creativity, collaboration, commerce and community, we think this offers enormous opportunities for developers, and it’s an exciting journey ahead of you and us... Thanks for putting up with our little snafus and here’s wishing you a fantastic GDC.

I tell you, the room was buzzing. More interestingly though, this year seems to have a strong theme of the game industry meeting the web industry, whether it be this Game 3.0, or Areae, of Rapture. It's like watching two giant ships collide.. but instead of destroying each other, they smush together to make Battlestar Galactica.

It's going to be a good year.

Comments

The term "Game 3.0" made me cringe. Nice idea though.

Posted by: Tom | March 07, 2007 at 20:16

Oh and I wonder what they'll do about people putting more "questionable" content up on Home. Or will there be a big orgy of Furry yiffing scat rape (add commas to that if you want :-D) videos and pictures everywhere a lá Second Life?

I noticed they took the Xbox 360 achievements thing and went one better by making them shiny and animated. Fair enough I suppose.

I really want to get my hands on Little Big Planet too. Looks ace, like Animal Crossing crossed with Viva Pinata crossed with a scrap book with physics bolted on :-D Definitely THE reason to buy a PS3. Hopefully it'll have really dropped in price by 2008 because there's no way in hell I'm paying £425.

Posted by: Tom | March 07, 2007 at 20:30

Thank you so much for posting this. I made the mistake of turning to 1Up for their coverage, which was abysmal.

Posted by: Pete S | March 07, 2007 at 22:21

Aw. You're welcome!

Posted by: Alice | March 07, 2007 at 23:11

Very well presented coverage of Sony's keynote. Great job.

Posted by: Ventsi | March 07, 2007 at 23:38

The name of the other LBP dev is Alex Evans, and their company is Media Molecule. Not only are they already awesome, but they've made me think about a PS3.

Posted by: David Hayward | March 08, 2007 at 11:35

"Or will there be a big orgy of Furry yiffing scat rape (add commas to that if you want :-D) videos and pictures everywhere a lá Second Life?"

Fnur, I have a deep affection for comments like that. It's like listening to my dad disapprove of "that internet" because "it's all pornography, innit?".

Posted by: | March 08, 2007 at 13:40