James Delahunty
4 Aug 2006 17:47
Phil Harrison, Sony's worldwide studios president has said that over 100 games are now in development for the PlayStation 3 console and that over 10,000 development kits have been shipped. Keeping up the tie between the console war and the next generation optical disc format war, Harrison not only touts the number of games in development, but the number of Blu-ray movies available (in the U.S.).
"We have shown more playable games than ever before, so the signs are good," he told British newspaper The Guardian, "and right now there are more than 100 Blu-Ray movies available today in the US. More than 100 games are in development, and all the major third-party publishers have pledged their strategic support for the platform." Harrison described work on the PS3 as being "in full swing, from a developer point of view."
He also praised Sony for getting development hardware to partners long before the scheduled launch of the PS3 in November. "Developers now have final hardware in their hands, though there will be some upgrades to the operating system - there's nothing unusual about that," he explained. "The new controller is now in developers' hands, so all the pieces of the puzzle are there."
Studios are now also able to run their games off discs, as the shipping of Blu-ray burners to developers has been accomplished. Obviously the picture Harrison would paint of the PS3 situation would look good for Sony considering his position, but to back up the hype, Epic Games boss Mark Rein has recently made comments to Eurogamer TV.
"I think Sony's in a good spot with the PlayStation 3," he said. "I know we're getting some great results with it back at our house, so I would expect other developers will be as well." He also said that Sony is in a better place now than Microsoft was last year having shipped the final PS3 hardware to developers around E3. "Developers did not have finished Xbox 360 hardware last year at E3" he said.
Source:
GamesIndustry.biz