In some rather surprising comments made by Sony’s Worldwide Studio’s President, Phil Harrison, he alluded that homebrew programs for the PS3 may be a totally acceptable direction for the console in remarks made to Slashdot.
Harrison first reminisced about the early days of game development and then moved onto his ideas about the PS3’s future. "When I started making games on the Commodore 64 in the 1980s, the way I learned to make games was by re-writing games that appeared in magazines. Really the best bit about a C64 was when you turned it on it said ‘Ready?’ with a flashing cursor – inviting you to experiment…"
He then said that making the PS3 open for this sort of experimentation was a possibility. "So, if we can make certain aspects of PS3 open to the independent game development community, we will do our industry a service by providing opportunities for the next generation of creative and technical talent."
Harrison’s statements are remarkable in that Sony has held a closed door approach to its hardware and technologies. Recent bouts with the public over copyright protection schemes over its music CDs and firmware updates of its PSP to prevent homebrew code from running run in direct contrast to Harrison’s remarks.
