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Sony's Michael Denny

European exec talks Move and more.

EurogamerCan we talk about the range of games you're showing today? It's not all just pet sims and sports games, which I think some people were worried about. It looks like you are going for more of a balance between casual and hardcore.
Michael Denny

It's great that you say that, and I think there is a balance there. But to some degree, in the same way we develop other games or sign other games, we're not over-prescriptive about what we're looking for.

We had the system, we put it out to the development community - both internal studios and our first-party external studios - and really they came up with the ideas. They're getting inspiration I'm sure from some motion control gaming they've seen before, but they very much want to come up with new ideas as well. So I think that's why we've ended up with that sort of balance, which is great to see.

EurogamerWhat will your shareholders think, though? When they see the huge success Nintendo has had with the casual market, won't they want you to invest more in that?
Michael Denny

I think we are doing that. We do have a pet game, with EyePet. We do have a party game with Move Party. So I think it's balanced. It will appeal to that casual audience but we've got to be conscious that we have a core playstation audience as well. We think it's a system, because of the accuracy that it brings with it, which will appeal to them as well.

The world has never seen technology like this.
EurogamerHow many titles already on the market can we expect to be able to play with the Move controller?
Michael Denny

Certainly existing game franchises we have, and maybe future iterations of those, will experiment with all the interfaces we have available to us now. If they work and if they add something and if the dev teams are excited by it, of course we'll look at integration. I think we'll have some more exciting announcements at E3 about which games - both new and existing - will take on Move control.

EurogamerHow will it work? Will I be able to play, say, LittleBigPlanet 1 with the Move controller, perhaps by downloading a patch? Or will I have to wait for a sequel - a new game with the functionality built in?
Michael Denny

Today we're not announcing whether we have any plans for LittleBigPlanet in terms of motion control. What we wanted to show today, by using a demo, similar to what we did at the Tokyo Game Show, was to show we think games like LittleBigPlanet can work with the Move controller - as SOCOM can, as I'm sure other existing franchises will as well.

EurogamerOK, without reference to any specific game, what's the general principle for how the system will work? Will I be able to download a patch that lets me play games I already own with the Move controller, or is the functionality only going to work with new games coming to the market?
Michael Denny
It's a bit like Robin without Batman: lonely.

Generally, both of those can happen. We can patch existing games so we have both those options open to us. So existing PS3 games on the market, we could patch to add in Move control functionality, or we could build them into new iterations of the game straight out of the box.

EurogamerWhen the PS3 motion controller was first announced, it was said to be launching this spring. Now, following the delay, you're going head-to-head with Microsoft, with Natal and Move both launching in autumn. How concerned are you about that? It's not an ideal situation, is it?
Michael Denny

All we concentrate on is getting our system absolutely right and making sure we've got great software support for the system we're launching. I think we're trying to demonstrate to everyone today that we're in great shape to do the launch later in the year, we're excited about it. Hopefully going to get a great reaction from everybody as well.

EurogamerIs your magic stick better than their invisible magic stick?
Michael Denny

I think we're really excited about what we're showing here today. The development teams who are working on it are excited about it. Hopefully the journalists who'll get their hands on it today will be as well.

Michael Denny is the vice president of Sony Worldwide Studios Europe. His magic stick is due to launch in the autumn.