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Sony's Michael Denny

The Worldwide Studios Europe boss reacts to the PlayStation Move announcement and line-up

GamesIndustry.biz It does move the PlayStation experience on, but people will inevitably look at what Nintendo has already done in the space - not so much the core or mature experiences, but certainly the social and party ones. How much impact do you really expect Move to have on the overall PlayStation experience?
Michael Denny

It's interesting - you look back at PlayStation 2 and it was about the same time in that console's life cycle that we started introducing new casual/social games and new interfaces, like SingStar, or Buzz!, or EyeToy before that. It's not new to PlayStation fans having physical gaming, or having new interfaces.

If you look at where we are with PlayStation 3, and where we can get to, this new system that has genuine new appeal in both vision technology and motion technology - and the experiences it can bring - I think it really will not just attract new audiences to PlayStation, but re-excite some of the existing PlayStation fans in the experiences we can give them.

GamesIndustry.biz Do you expect it to shift console units, or will it initially appeal to those people who already have a PlayStation 3?
Michael Denny

It's going to do absolutely both of those things. If you've already got a PlayStation then it's a great additive experience. It can add to existing games, or existing franchises that people already know. We'll bring new IPs, new experiences for it - but as I said before, the stage we're at in the life cycle with PS3, it can help us broaden the audience now, as we'd expect to do at this time anyway.

GamesIndustry.biz There's a good level of third party support in terms of companies working on Move solutions - how easy were they to persuade? Was there excitement from their point of view?
Michael Denny

Genuinely, there was. From dealing with external first party developers, when we showed them the system and they had some hands-on time - some of the ideas they came up with - there was great excitement in terms of the true third party publishers as well.

Some of the stuff we talked about today - the ability to take an existing franchise and add a new dimension to it is also very exciting for a lot of those players.

But genuinely, the reaction to the system has been great, and when more people get hands-on with the system that's going to keep growing now.

GamesIndustry.biz How important is it that the Move product is a slick and responsive product?
Michael Denny

It's important in anything we do - we want to stay true to our visions, and we've always held out augmented reality and vision-based technology very strongly, going back to the PlayStation 2 era with the EyeToy. That was important, that we based it in an area we had expertise in - but anything we introduce new has to be innovative, has to feel like it's next-gen, it has to feel PlayStation and slick.

We think the system is all of those things - in terms of the gamer sense, the precision it brings means that we can augment core game experiences with it as well. It certainly moves on what we can do with augmented reality games as well, so when you look at a game like EyePet that we've already launched, adding motion control to that gives it an added dimension, and a more intuituve interface.

GamesIndustry.biz So is that where the innovation is, then? The way that it interacts with the whole range of software?
Michael Denny

That's a big part of it, for sure, but it comes from a number of sources. In terms of mixing the motion control with true HD gaming is a genuinely new experience for people in gaming - so when you combine all those things, it's easy to see the appeal to the consumer in terms of enhancing the game experience.

Michael Denny is head of Sony Worldwide Studios Europe. Interview by Phil Elliott.

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