Job cuts, corporate reshuffling and a new partnership in the pipeline

Just days after the hardware specifications for the Next Generation PlayStation were released in Tokyo, Sony announced a company-wide reorganisation, which includes some 17,000 job cuts. For videogamers, the most prescient news is that Sony Computer Entertainment will become wholly owned by the Sony Corporation, and as part of the move, Ken Kutaragi becomes President and CEO of SCEI. Essentially, the shift means that Sony have recognised how important the PlayStation has become to their overall business strategy.

Sony have also announced a partnership with Animation Science Corporation, a leading developer of rules-based 3D effects and behaviour technology. “Animation Science offers a technology that is an important component for Next Generation PlayStation,” said Shinichi Okamoto, VP of R&D at SCEI. “We are convinced that behaviour synthesis will be a key differentiator in the Next Generation PlayStation titles and Animation Science’s technologies will enable developers to deliver game titles that contain a new level of emotion and realism”.

Two of the technologies Animation Science have developed are called Outburst and Rampage. Outburst is a physics-based particle animation system for creating complex effects such as explosions, smoke, dust and rain. Rampage enables digital animators to create highly realistic crowd scenes, and yet focus on individual behaviour within the crowds. Of course, all this is just whetting everyone’s appetite further for PlayStation 2. Darn it.