We’ve already covered the new PlayStation Store in considerable detail (along with our reveal this morning) but we’ve also been speaking to the guys in charge of the whole operation.
We spoke to Gordon Thornton, VP of Network Operations, and Elliott Dumville, Product Development Manager for PlayStation Store, about the changes, and the full interview will be coming up on TheSixthAxis soon.
In the meantime, one of the key slices of information garnered is that the Store, when it launches next week in Europe, won’t be the final version. It’ll change and improve gradually, and on a fairly regular basis too, which is encouraging.
“In terms of getting it to market and it taking a long time, this actually represents getting the fundamentals right, and then we can start dropping new features in once it’s up and in the public domain,” Dumville told TheSixthAxis.
“Going forward we’re hopeful that every month, or every couple of months at worst, we’ll be dropping in new features, updates, changes and so forth,” Elliot added. “That will be a process which is a dialogue with the fanbase.”
Stay tuned for the full interview, which also touches on recent delays and communication, and why the Store has been built in HTML5…
carson321
good news, just make sure the updates are not on a wednesday or thursday and give us at least a few days notice like this time please!
yiddo
Indeed. Don’t molest the whole PSN infrastructure when you make a slight change to the PS Store.
Cheers.
Forrest_01
Why is it a problem to have updates on Wednesdays or Thursdays?
Pedromr
It’s usually when the weekly new content shows up, I think…
Forrest_01
Ah, i thought he was talking about the weekly content updates (which ironically started on a Thursday & are now on a Wednesday).
Still don’t see what the issue would be with Thursday though, that being the case.
mcphatty
They should bring back F5 Thursday, it was way better than PSN Maintenance Wednesday.
Megamoppy
Just looking at pricing (Taking the screenshot for an example) F1 2012 for £50!? Just a casual glance at amazon has it at £33 for a hard copy. Is there any actual reason for these prices? I always thought that downloaded games would be cheaper with no need for packing and shipping. Is there any real reason for these prices?
djdustb
Yeah, Greedy developers.
psychobudgie
I think you will find the greed is with the publishers.
fattyuk
same old conversation every time someone moans about pricing…sigh…. it’s to do with the publishers not being able to undercut there retailers!!
ie they can’t undercut the shops prices, if psn price for say f1 is £30 download and release Day it’s £33 on amazon the consumer will go to psn thus amazon/ the retailer won’t make a sale and won’t stock the game,
fattyuk
same old conversation every time someone moans about pricing…sigh…. it’s to do with the publishers not being able to undercut there retailers!!
ie they can’t undercut the shops prices, if psn price for say f1 is £30 download and release Day it’s £33 on amazon the consumer will go to psn thus amazon/ the retailer won’t make a sale and won’t stock the game,
fattyuk
please delete double post thanks x
Megamoppy
Whilst i’m sorry to bring the same topic up again that you’ve sen personally so many times fattyuk, I still find the pricing ridiculous. While I understand the argument that services will not stock it if they are not going to sell, surely £40 at least would make it a viable alternative and would still give a decent margin for Amazon and other online retailers.
I still remember when my dad dropped 50 notes for Zelda, it didn’t matter then as it wasn’t my money xD (I still remember seeing pre-owned mega drive games for £15 – £28
hol
I’m actually looking forward to seeing what Sony has done to the store & to what they’ve got planned for its future :)
As for pricing, the store uses the rrp set by the publishers, in reality if the online & high st retailers chose to, they could do the same, thankfully they don’t :)
fattyuk
also looking forward to the new store and plus for vita!
as for rrp I still have memory’s of persuading family members to buy me n64 games for £54.99 lol and mega drive games for £40! (and sega saturn, gameboy etc) most of todays youth gamers sees rrp £49.99 being sold for £39.99 on release and cry that it’s to expensive lol even at 29.99 it’s too much
bunimomike
Ha! Classic developer release. We’ve done enough to release to the public and we’ll patch the ever-loving-funk out of it over the coming months. The spin they put on it is pure misdirection. Kudos.
bowie
There is a reason why every software developer does it. Users of software can rarely tell you what they actually want when it comes to user interfaces they can only tell you what they don’t like about the interface in front of them. So all you can do is trial a design and then fix what is wrong with it.
bunimomike
I’d normally agree but Sony have had years to get this right plus it should’ve been beta tested to hell. I’m completely aware of tweaks and bug fixes but this is them rolling out features. You’re one of the devs, aren’t you? :-p
Kevling
“this actually represents getting the fundamentals right”
Yep, always good to get the fundamentals right 6 years after launching something.