GDC08: Steinburg explains Sony's stance for 2008


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It seems we haven't heard much from Scott Steinburg, SCEA's VP of marketing, for awhile, but did he ever come back with some heavy-handed quotes in an interview with gamesindustry.biz. Steinburg touched on a myriad of issues throughout the interview including Home, Blu-ray's win over HD DVD and Sony's counter to Gears of War 2.

Steinburg reaffirmed Sony's attractiveness for small developers to bring their games to the PlayStation Network over Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade. "We don't charge for our online service. We make it available for everybody," he said. "So, the accessibility of somebody's content who decides to make a game that is maybe smaller, more affordable for consumers to buy ... I think if a small, start-up company wanted to have global access to their content, and have global commercial potential for their content, Sony is by far the best platform."

When asked how Sony will counter Gears of War 2's release in November, Steinburg chose to first explain this year's healthy lineup of games throughout the entire year before finally arriving at what it has in store for the end of the year. "I think one of the biggest games for us will be Resistance 2. We expect that, in November, to go toe-to-toe against Gears of War 2. It will be our third-generation PS3 product," he explained. Steinburg did a great job providing Sony's stance and position in the industry without spewing ridiculous assumptions that have been a stable of Sony execs in the past. We just now hope that Sony can follow through on all the great things he said.

Source: http://www.ps3fanboy.com/2008/02/22/gdc08-...tance-for-2008/

Read the rest of the interview: http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=33414

RFOM2 vs GoW2 will be a good showdown :woot:

Here's hoping KZ2 comes out in November as well :laugh:

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So they epect the sequel of a game that flopped to go up agaist GoW2, well it's not like anyone has heard of GoW anyway, it's just a minor blip on the gaming radar :p

He's also way to focused on price as for why developers shoudl go for PSN over XBLA for small arcadeish games, firstly MS practically made this sub genre on the console, also their console is wy easier to develop for and get more power from, wih is improtant for such small games where developement cost and time needs to be low and short. MS also provides a lot of help for their developers and have several teams of "SWAT" programmers ready to send out to help any devs who need help. and at this point we haven't even hit on the much larger userbase XBL offers as it is.

If all he's going to offer the developers is free cost to host their games, he's going to be dissapointed. Sonhy still has a lot to learn about how you treat your partners, even the small ones who don't offer a lot of return profits.

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So they epect the sequel of a game that flopped to go up agaist GoW2, well it's not like anyone has heard of GoW anyway, it's just a minor blip on the gaming radar :p

He's also way to focused on price as for why developers shoudl go for PSN over XBLA for small arcadeish games, firstly MS practically made this sub genre on the console, also their console is wy easier to develop for and get more power from, wih is improtant for such small games where developement cost and time needs to be low and short. MS also provides a lot of help for their developers and have several teams of "SWAT" programmers ready to send out to help any devs who need help. and at this point we haven't even hit on the much larger userbase XBL offers as it is.

If all he's going to offer the developers is free cost to host their games, he's going to be dissapointed. Sonhy still has a lot to learn about how you treat your partners, even the small ones who don't offer a lot of return profits.

I doubt it will beat GoW 2 sales as GoW is a bigger franchise, but RFOM is far from a "flop".

Right now the multiplayer specs released for RFOM2 are the most ambitious ever done on a console, so that is why it's getting media attention.

8 man co-op? 60 player online?

We've yet to hear what GoW2 will offer in terms of an online experience.

Sonhy still has a lot to learn about how you treat your partners, even the small ones who don't offer a lot of return profits.

Rumour is some of the indie developers for XBLA are cheesed at MS cutting their profits - https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=621523

MS also provides a lot of help for their developers and have several teams of "SWAT" programmers ready to send out to help any devs who need help.

Dunno what Sony support is like, but I do know MS support is good - A few developers of XBLA have said so.

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Its interesting how companies are trying to reach smaller developers these days in gaming, as great as big companies are, small ones can really create something special sometimes, I think the best example was how Portal is basically a game a bunch of students developed and hired on by valve to make a proper game out of it that is now very very popular.

So they epect the sequel of a game that flopped to go up agaist GoW2, well it's not like anyone has heard of GoW anyway, it's just a minor blip on the gaming radar :p

Flopped?

It sold about half of Gears of War, I wouldn't say that was flop, but whatever makes you sleep better at night I suppose.

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Flopped?

It sold about half of Gears of War, I wouldn't say that was flop, but whatever makes you sleep better at night I suppose.

Especially as a launch title during a very lackluster launch where half of the sales were to a region that could care less about online FPS games (Japan) v. a 2nd-generation title that fits to the typical American 360 owner's wheelhouse.

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Especially as a launch title during a very lackluster launch where half of the sales were to a region that could care less about online FPS games (Japan) v. a 2nd-generation title that fits to the typical American 360 owner's wheelhouse.

I think the fact it was a launch title helped its sales. There weren't really that many games on the PS3's launch. I only got RFOM because it was the only FPS to pick from the launch titles.

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