"The Playstation 3 Is a Computer"

Phil Harrison is Sony's head game designer. In an interview with SPIEGEL ONLINE, he talks about accusations that Sony copied Nintendo's new motion-sensitive controller, why Blu-ray needs no copy protection, and what Playstation 3 has to do with MySpace.

( Phil Harrison - the guy in the right picture - is Sony's head of game development, presiding over the Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios. He's been working for the Japanese game console manufacturer since 1992 and is considered one of the prime advocates of the Playstation brand in Europe )

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How do you respond to people who say you stole Nintendo's idea for a motion-sensitive controller?

Phil Harrison: On one level I understand why people say that. But it's a little stupid, if you don't mind me saying so. When we launched Playstation in 1994 we introduced the concept of real-time computer-generated 3-D-graphics for the first time. That was the innovation that drove the platform. When Nintendo released the N64 in 1996 and they had real-time CG 3-D-graphics, did you hear us say, "Nintendo, you've stolen our idea?" Of course not. These innovations are things that become possible because of a combination of technology, price and manufacturing capability.

SPIEGEL ONLINE: But it is a bit striking that two consoles with motion-sensitive controllers are hitting the market at the same time.

Harrison: We have been working on these innovations ourselves for a long time, and clearly Nintendo has been working on similar -- although not identical -- innovations for a long time, and that's natural. That's what technology is about. However, the difference between our strategy and everybody else's is that our controller, the Playstation dual analog controller, is the de facto industry standard controller in video gaming. I reckon, including the third party controllers that have been sold that are the same shape as this, nearly 400 million have been sold worldwide. This means that we have the standard for human machine interface for gaming in this controller. What we have done is to add an additional dynamic to this controller; namely freedom of movement.

Continue the interview staight from the source @ Spiegel

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