IndustryGamers - Informing the Games Industry

Sony and Codename Team Up To Bring Social Gaming To PlayStation Home

Posted July 19, 2010 by M.H. Williams

Sony Computer Entertainment America has announced a partnership with independent label Codename to bring a series of new social games to PlayStation Home. The agreement will bring indie developers worldwide together to create brand-new experiences exclusively for the PlayStation Home platform. The games will be a mix of classic titles, experimental games, and first-time outings. Each title will bring the social gaming experience to Home, allowing users to compete and share with friends.

Codename will be introducing the following titles to PlayStation Home within the next few months:

• Dueling Gentlemen, created by Odd Gentleman, players strategize the right moves on a giant stage in Home’s Plaza, to outsmart opponents and win this old-time battle for honor and prestige.

• Minor Battle, created by Peanut Gallery, winner of the IndieCade 2010 Audience Award, a team-based game where two teams run around a cube of four screens to beat each other in a capture-the-flag style platformer.

• Super Awesome Mountain RPG, created by Codename, a blend of tabletop board games and fantasy RPGs, where players ascend a fantastical mountain in Home’s Central Plaza using a custom animated figurine.

• Cogs in 3D multiplayer, a multiplayer version of Lazy8’s diabolically clever Steampunk-style game, this gear-based puzzler will also be a dynamic public spectacle in Home’s Central Plaza.

“We’re thrilled to be partnering with PlayStation Home to create and develop games that step outside the parameters of traditional game development and we’re really looking forward to the creative opportunities that lie ahead,” said Codename founder Jesse Vigil. “Our model of pulling together teams of developers and allowing them to make their creative dreams a reality has only one main tenet -- any game created for PlayStation Home is graphically and visually entertaining to both play and watch, at the same time.”

This partnership serves Sony’s continuing push into the social marketplace, with the aim of “extending the social gaming experience for PlayStation Home users, while attracting new users with never-before seen experiences.”

M.H. Williams has been writing in some form or another for ten years and has been a hardcore gamer since the NES first graced American shores.  You can catch him on Twitter as @AutomaticZen, Google+ as himself, or on his personal Facebook page.