The official new PlayStation blog launched recently, and SCEA San Diego’s PJ was quick to address this rumor floating about concerning their new High Velocity Bowling game on the PS3. For those who haven’t heard of it, it’s a bowling game where you turn the Sixaxis controller on its side, hold it in one hand, and swing it to bowl – similar to a bowling ball or a Wii remote. Here’s what PJ had to say:
It’s a pretty common misconception that High Velocity Bowling is Sony’s “answer†to Wii Sports Bowling. We came up with the idea of using the SIXAXIS controller for bowling on August 23rd, 2006 – I know the exact date because it was my birthday…Eddy Cramm (who is a Sr. Designer on MLB ‘07) and I had taken the day off to get a couple rounds of golf in, a rare luxury these days. Out on the course, we talked about using the controller as a bowling interface (we both carry 200+ averages in our current bowling league) and both loved the idea. He sent a text message to our studio director that night and my team (small, but dedicated) started work on it the next day. While we weren’t surprised by the inclusion of bowling in Wii Sports a month later, we knew that we were taking it a step further once that game launched.Â
I don’t really know who to believe in these situations – I can maybe understand the whole “our R&D teams were heading in the same directions because motion sensing is simply the next step.” But when you consistently have one thing (HVB) after another (expanding our demographic) after another, you start to wonder.
Thanks to Chris for the tip!
