At the Sony blogger's event, Warhawk's Dylan Jobe admitted that the PlayStation Network game doesn't deserve "to be a full priced game." Unfortunately, he admits, it's not his job to set the pricing. The team wanted to make a good product, but there were a few employees frustrated that the game was becoming a Network-only game. There's a stigma, he noted, and one disgruntled employee left the team due to the misconception that downloadable games are somehow lesser experiences.
"Crap product will sell like crap, whether or not it's on a shelf or not," Dylan admitted. He thinks that the future of Sony's Network offerings is exciting, especially because it "transcends arcade rehashes." These are "high quality titles" that will allow the company to "earn the player's trust back."
Going forward, Sony admits that they're trying to get a "downloadable demo for every title." There is no Warhawk demo in the works now, but the possibility of offering a public beta for trial purpose is still being discussed.
1. I have a 360 and a Wii in addition to the PS3.
The Wii's "Virtual Console" has very little of interest to me. I bought Military Madness for the TG-16 because I enjoyed the game back in the day and I wanted to re-visit it. I've played it once. I doubt I'll buy any more of these 'classics.' Did you know that if your Wii dies and you buy a new one, all your VC games are lost and you'd have to buy them all over again?
XBLA fares better in that they do release some original content amongst the re-hashed like Root Beer Tapper and Paperboy. Up until now, though, the 50 meg limit has meant that the vast majority of new titles have been arcade shooters of one variety or another. Though we keep being promised Settlers of Catan. With the size limitations eased maybe things will get better.
The PSN offering Tekken Dark Resurrection gives me incredible hope that finally a console will have "full" games available for download. I'm sure that "Calling All Cars" will be fun, but I hope it doesn't represent the typical offerings we'll be getting, as it seems like a title that could easily pop up on XBLA.
Posted at 6:24PM on Mar 11th 2007 by GRT