03.02.2007 MORE PLAYSTATION HOME RUMORS
The original rumors were started yesterday, but everyone's drawing their own conclusions and making their own predictions. We won't know anything for sure until the Game Developers Conference next week, but here's one more story that's supposedly an inside leak regarding what we can expect. An anonymous NeoGAF user writes:
"I'm not a prolific poster here, as I normally only post whenever I've got something to say. And I've never been in a position of having insider information before, but I believe I have some now.
I have a friend who I maybe see once or twice a year who is a graphic artist for sony in London. Last time I met with him which is going back at least a good 9 months if not more, I had a chat with him about what he was working on. He talked about some sort of abstract world that was part interface, part virtual world. He seemed to be suggesting it would be part of the PS3 interface as opposed to a stand alone game, and he seemed genuinely excited about it. Anyhoo, it was over a few beers with a group of people and while he talked about ideas I struggled to visualise what he was actually involved with, apart from it was abstract and sounded strangely like Animal Crossing (but in my head I had a much more neon / cyberpunk image, not sure if that was because of something he mentioned previously). He also used the word 'avatar' a lot.
So there you have it, I've never posted any insider info before, and maybe will never have the opportunity again, but this DEFINITELY sounds like the project he was working on, and has been working on for some significant time."
If all this info does add up to what sony plans on announcing at GDC, then PS3 users are definitely up for a huge change in how they use their consoles. If the rumors are true, then the change is pretty much inarguably a good move, but the timing make me a little suspicious. I'm starting to get the vibe from sony that I've been getting from Nintendo for a while - that they've got a lot going on in the background that we're not seeing yet. Sure, that's true all around the spectrum, but it's odd that sony wouldn't try to pump up fans by mentioning this before launch. Either way though, this is good news. The sony versus Microsoft situation was starting to look like PS3 would have some serious catching up to do by 2008, but this major console addition is a big step in closing the gap.
