GDC: Phil Harrison's keynote address
Live Text coverage beginning at 18:30 GMT.
Updated on
At 18.30 GMT (10.30 PST), Sony Worldwide Studios president Phil Harrison will be taking the stage at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco to deliver his long-awaited keynote - the first time that Sony has set out its stall in public since the US and Japanese launches of the PS3 late last year.
We're expecting to hear plenty from Phil about the company's online plans, and we've been promised some brand new games to look at as well as a demonstration of the future of the PS3's network service. Will it be enough to silence Sony's vocal critics? Only time will tell - but for now, roll up, ladies and gents, the keynote circus is back in town and tonight's performance should be a good 'un.
We'll be kicking off Live Text from San Francisco on this page just ahead of half six, or as soon as Ellie can think of some wry observations to make about being in a massive room with 4,000 game developers. As ever, you don't need to refresh the page unless you're on some kind of fossilised Browser of the Ancients, because our amazing Interweb Technology will deliver the latest morsels of text right to your eyes without intervention. Magic!
We'll also be continually updating our gallery with Pat-pics from the conference, so make sure you get a load of them elsewhere on the site.
Our live coverage of this event has finished.
Hello readers! We're just waiting for the GDC team to come online. They shouldn't be long!
Hello everyone. It's all getting ready to go. Sit back, grab some popcorn, and don't touch F5.
There's giant footballs bouncing all over the shop. Don't they know we're trying to work?
Ow!
Here's big Phil!
Title of the speech today is Game 3.0, he says.
He's talking about Web 2.0 Do you know how many times we've heard that this week?
He's slowly moving onto Game 3.0...
PS3 Home announced. An avatar-based network for PlayStation 3.
Whoopsie. There's some presentation glitches, but big Phil's made a sterling recovery.
"Home is a 3D community". He's showing character customisation. Talking to another user he typed "ho" instead of "hi".
He's showing off the World Map. "We've talked about the public spaces, let's talk about the private spaces"
Everyone has their own apartment - you can customise it to your heart's content.
The first thing you can do is change the wallpaper. It's all about "tricking out" your apartment. Harrison's using the example of Resistance wallpaper.
There's all sorts of furniture you can have, like a chair. You can put it wherever you like and it's physics based, so you can pile all your furniture in the corner if you like.
You can take any content that's yours on your PS3 hard disk drive and use it in your apartment. For example, Harrison's putting a big picture frame on his wall showing a photo from his hard drive.
He's going to "customise the experience" with some user generated content.
Harrison's taking a photo of the audience!
There's a nice patio where some of Phil's chums are having a party. His avatar is dancing. Embarassingly.
He's throwing a bravia TV down the stairs. It hasn't broken. "Just like in the real world, in the virtual world Sony technology is still reliable."
We're in a movie theatre now.
You can get the content you want to watch when you want to watch it. We're seeing a Spider-Man 3 trailer.
You can have specific TV shows and movies that you can access by walking through virtual doors. You can chat with your friends about the trailers you've seen - "It's a great way of building community."
It's not just about Sony brands or games, though. We're looking at a map now, with icons like SEGA, THQ, Ubisoft.
In the future, you might see the logo of a shop, a coffee company, a magazine.
Now we're in some kind of virtual room - it's all neon and shiny. There's a series of doors which you can walk through to see different games.
There are sub rooms where you can check out mini-games - there's a driving range and a three-point basketball room.
You navigate between the World Map with a virtual PSP.
Now it's time for the Hall of Fame, "A place where you can customise your physical environment to represent the trophies you've won in PS3 games."
You can invite friends into your Hall of Fame so they can see your trophies and admire your MAD SKILLZ.
(He didn't actually say MAD SKILLZ.)
They're not boring old silver cups - they're 3D things like statues of game characters.
You can also bring up old trophies that perhaps you don't want to display in your Hall of Fame.
"But it's not just about the games you own" - it's about the entire network, and being able to see the trophies other people have won.
It's a giant room with billions of trophies in! It's just like the Star Wars senate!
That's the Home bit over, then. What's next?
Oh, he's summarising...
"It's a unique real-time 3D community". Avatar based, free to download, free to use and launched directly through the XMB. There are public and private spaces for every user.
In The Future, you'll be able to have more sophisticated clothing and Pets!
It's an easy platform to create, for both game and non-game brands.
The beta starts in April, and it's all launching in autumn 2007. Now it really is the end of the Home bit.
Time for Singstar. It's sold 7 million units on PS2 and delivered over 200 million songs, don't you know. They're expanding it for PS3, obviously. Harrison won't be singing.
Time for Singstar. It's sold 7 million units on PS2 and delivered over 200 million songs, don't you know. They're expanding it for PS3, obviously. Harrison won't be singing.
Time for a trip to the SingStore. Avril Lavigne. Ugh.
Belinda Carlisle! A-Ha! It's 1992!
In the My Media Gallery, you can share your performances with others. You film them with an EyeToy or web camera.
[Internet problems abound, we'll be right back.]
[Perhaps Harrison has taken Ellie hostage...]
Media Molecule are now on stage. Ex-Lionhead man Chris Healy is showing off LittleBigPlanet.
He's dropping objects into the backyard environment. Dossing about with things like giant oranges and wooden blocks. He's creating.
LittleBigPlanet looks great. There are four characters pulling each other around the world. It's co-operative but also competitive.
We're in a darker area now, but lights shaped like stars are hanging down from the ceiling. The characters are hanging on to them and using them to ride around the screen.
One of the characters is wearing a Red Indian headdress, another some kind of space suit... It's all very cute.
They've make their own physics-based platform game in LittleBigPlanet, and users will be able to do the same.
Harrison's having a go now, and now Mark's going to show us what you can do with one of the game's giant oranges.
The crowd are going absolutely bananas.
They've just done the grand finale - the four characters zooming down a hill on a giant skateboard. Huge round of applause. Crowd still going absolutely bonkers.
It doesn't end there. Users can share their content with other PS3 Home users.
There's a short film now, hinting at all the things you can do online with LittleBigPlanet - like see the highest rated games, post comments, send messages.
The LBP demo is over and the Media Molecule guys are leaving the stage. The game is out later this year on the Network and on Blu-Ray early next year.
Time for Phil's serious bit - "it's going to be a very exciting journey" for PS3. And that's it!