June 26, 2009March 29, 2010

PlayStation Eye Chat: Shatter for PSN

Man, somehow we missed the incredibly cool upcoming PSN game, Shatter, at E3. Thankfully, the kind folks at developer Sidhe agreed to participate in the PSB’s first-ever video interview using the PlayStation Eye. And considering the company resides down in New Zealand (insert generic Flight of the Conchords quip here), it’s just about the only way to get them talking in-person.

Shatter is like Arkanoid on steroids…and we mean that in the most positive way. Here, Managing Director Mario Wynands talks about the game’s slick graphics, power-ups and unique push/pull gameplay that makes this PSN game the real deal.

And what do you think of the PS3 Video Chat format via the Eye? Drop a comment and let us know…it could be a great way to conduct interviews with folks from across the globe.

Comments are closed.

217 Comments

GibbShift
June 26, 2009 at 10:25 pm PDT

DO WANT.
Ivan_Krazy
June 26, 2009 at 10:47 pm PDT

Oh Sweet your from New Zealand… Will definitely buy this via the Australian PSN Store.. .sounds awesome and addictive :)
Ivan_Krazy
June 26, 2009 at 10:49 pm PDT

Sweet your from New Zealand (Kiwi) :)
This game sounds addictive and lots of fun.. will definitely buy via the Australian PSN Store :)
Ivan_Krazy
June 26, 2009 at 10:55 pm PDT

Geez sorry for double posting….. It seems the submission of comments takes a while to appear.
N8Vosburgh
June 26, 2009 at 11:26 pm PDT

Game looks sweeet! ps eye chat-interview is cool. would be cool to save a chat session to post later to you tube or save on my computer.
afdgsfdgnb
June 26, 2009 at 11:36 pm PDT

Sounds fantastic.

Now when is the disc version coming, because that is the only way I’m buying it.

STOP DISCRIMINATING AGAINST THE PRO-DISC CROWD AND GIVE US WHAT WE WANT.
- Mario Wynands
  June 26, 2009 at 11:39 pm PDT
  
  It is unlikely to come to disc on its own as it would have to be priced way above what it will be online to cover the costs of that.
  
  That being said, once we get a couple more PSN titles out the door, we are very interested in doing compilation discs for retail. So, hopefully we can offer it to you that way down the track.
TrueStoryGuy
June 26, 2009 at 11:41 pm PDT

It’s a shame to hear that SOE didn’t approve of the GripShift patch.

Any chance that for every download of “Shatter” there’s a free download (or install) of the patch for “GripShift”? Like, in the “Options” section or something. ‘Cause that’ll be a great way to trojan horse your way through to finally patch the game and give the guys who worked on it some credit.
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 12:34 am PDT
  
  Unfortunately, we couldn\’t do that for both technical and legal reasons.
jwiest
June 26, 2009 at 11:43 pm PDT

I thought the interview worked out quite well with the PS3 Eye and look forward to seeing more.

It might have been a bit more useful/informative if instead of having just gameplay running through some of the interview it had been more of a descriptive demo explaining specifically what was going on in a given shot (as appropriate of course)
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 12:35 am PDT
  
  We\’ll be releasing more videos soon including a more detailed look at gameplay specifics.
Miles514
June 27, 2009 at 12:07 am PDT

The game is looking very good. And the video chat was great! no lag! Ran smoothly! Why haven’t i picked up a playstation eye!? I could use it in talking to a few buddys and use it in little big planet.
Kamahl_rg
June 27, 2009 at 12:16 am PDT

so now that the PS eye is mentioned… when are more PS eye games coming out? i saw that pet thing… but it seems more family oriented, is there something else?
Marauderxt
June 27, 2009 at 12:24 am PDT

Game looks great from the video, but please put out more Gameplay videos I looked all over youtube and just found 1; plus a trailer(great by the way). I want to hear more of that music it sounds totally up my alley.

Also any co-op? on release or maybe down the road via DLC this game seems like it could work with co-op just make the stage wider or even have another player on the other side..PONG style.
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 12:40 am PDT
  
  We\’ll be releasing more gameplay video and exposing more of the music over the next few weeks.
  
  In the mean time, look up videos from user ModuleNZ on Youtube to get a vibe for what sort of music he can create. He is the musician who did the whole soundtrack, and is a real musical genius.
PoloM29
June 27, 2009 at 12:37 am PDT

A real nice way to interview. Not only is it making things much easier, but its introducing a new and different way of doing things.

This is perfect….I say if anything wasn’t able to be announced at E3, there should be a interview conducted over the PS Eye.

No traveling or anything, you guys can make it happen!!
PoloM29
June 27, 2009 at 12:40 am PDT

Also I’m another supporter for custom soundtrack, please include that in the game and its a guarantee purchase for me.
AceNet2
June 27, 2009 at 1:11 am PDT

Love the Eye interview!! Why the hell hasen’t this been done before?! It showcases multiple great features on the PS3, *please* do more from all over the globe.

Also very nice to hear what the PS bluetooth sounds like on the other end, it’s beautiful!! None of my friends use it but they always say I sound good!

Mr Wynands, nice take on a classic genre. I thought I was done with pong games but, boss battles you say?! I can’t wait to see some of that! Looks very fun. Will it have the custom soundtrack feature? I will buy it for that reason alone, don’t even need to see more gameplay. Cheers! =)
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 1:16 am PDT
  
  Yep, 10 different boss battles in the game. If you look at the teaser linked on the first page of comments, you can catch glimpses of 3 of them.
  
  No custom soundtrack support as yet, but these comments show demand is pretty high so it is has to be top of our list in things to add to it in the future.
AceNet2
June 27, 2009 at 1:50 am PDT

Wow! Just watched the trailer 3 times! http://www.gametrailers.com/player/49223.html
Looks awesome! I’ll definitely be buying Shatter!

Thank you, thank you, thank you! for listening to us here on the .blog and our desire for the often overlooked soundtrack feature. Please try and make it happen. You’ll probably sell 75% more copies if you have it!

I must say I really appreciate you great devs taking the time to listen to your customers and fans. You have no idea how much respect you’ll garner just by acknowleding and hearing our cries! You’re not just talking to us, but our frinds, family and co-workers as well. Don’t worry, I’ll sell a few copies on my own! ;)
usjvc
June 27, 2009 at 2:05 am PDT

Intriguing, i’ll keep a close eye on this one.

On a side note, Jess would you please ask Christina Lee to webcam chat with me :D
HerbertFortoon
June 27, 2009 at 2:14 am PDT

The interview idea is great, and the game looks pretty good as well. One thought though,I understand that a lot of effort goes into a games soundtrack and all that, but even the best music in game gets old after awhile, and I just end up turning it off. Please, include the ability to listen to music off of my HDD!

Pretty Please
HerbertFortoon
June 27, 2009 at 2:19 am PDT

Wow, did my comment not go through?

Let me summarize what I said since it wasn’t posted apparently.

The interview was a good idea, but I will not buy this until I can play my own music when the soundtrack gets old. Thanks mate
Carl-G
June 27, 2009 at 2:42 am PDT

Any 4 player on the same screen mode?

I need more 4 player PS3/PSN games to play with my friends ;)

+ I wish SONY would tell people about all these features the PS3 that it can do?

“PS3 Video Chat format via the Eye”
I bet a lot of people didn’t know the PS3 could do that! :D

SONY NEED to advertise these features on TV really :(
BalramRules
June 27, 2009 at 4:07 am PDT

Sorry, I really couldn’t bother watching the video, can someone please sum what the video was about to me please, it was too long you see.
MP5-PRO333
June 27, 2009 at 4:16 am PDT

I first thought that it was a video chat improvement, but dissapointed again.
Buddyleej
June 27, 2009 at 4:32 am PDT

@Mario This is a day one purchase for me it looks great.

@PSBLOG This type of video interview has to be one of the best ideas you guys have ever had. I would much prefer to submit questions and see an interview like this over the live blog stuff.
mushroomwig
June 27, 2009 at 5:22 am PDT

Wow I’ve never seen so many replies from the staff before!

Keep it up! :)

Great work ^__^

I love the way you’ve also sold the PSeye to a few people after seeing this.
Callahan09
June 27, 2009 at 5:33 am PDT

I hate to hear about the situation you had with SOE and that patch. Disappoints me to know you guys put the work in to make the title better for those who bought it, and then SOE says “no thanks.” But please don’t let it get in the way of your relationship with SCE(A/E/J,etc.) as they are distinct entities. Perhaps it’s a lesson learned, that if you’re not the publisher of your game you need to make sure you get an idea like that green-lit before you go ahead and sink the resources into development. Anyway, good luck with your current and future ventures and I hope you don’t get bit like that again! Looking forward to Shatter.
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 7:18 pm PDT
  
  It was partly to do with some of the people involved moving on from SOE. So what started out as a no brainer ended up a waste of time. A pity, but having control over those sorts of situations is one of the motivations for us moving to a self publishing model for console downlaods.
Tracidic
June 27, 2009 at 6:16 am PDT

1. Is this session just made from XMB video chat or can it be started while in a game PiP or if not while in a game you hit the PS button to go to XMB and puruse the video chatting?

2. What if we have the Sony official bluetooth headset, will there be optional integration using that + the Playstation Eye?

3. Since the Playstation Eye has old gen motion capture, will we ever see multiplayer with limited emoticon we make over the Playstation Eye?

Keep up the good work.
Tracidic
June 27, 2009 at 6:19 am PDT

Sorry, question 3 was slightly off-topic but would love to see that in the drawing board. As for the Shatter game. It looks quite interesting,loved Arkanoid back in the days, I hope it has trophy support day 1, is there a release date you’re shooting for?
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 7:20 pm PDT
  
  It does have trophy support.
  
  No release date as yet, but we are hoping to announce one soon. It will be out before the end of summer definitely.
Danaantje
June 27, 2009 at 6:24 am PDT

Great and good idea!!!!!
It’s works well ;-)

can you tell us how you did record
and with toil or hardware you did use within the eye-chat??

i really wanne know how to do that!
krae_man
June 27, 2009 at 6:24 am PDT

Ha ha, Mario is taking on John Diamonon in terms of dev replu count.

Is one of the magic numbers 176? :p
krae_man
June 27, 2009 at 6:25 am PDT

Ha ha, Mario is taking on John Diamonon in terms of developer reply count :p
cowboyd21
June 27, 2009 at 6:38 am PDT

Am just gald to see that people can see what the ps3 eye can do when it come to video chat . To me this form of communicate is better then text or voice chat.
Jim777
June 27, 2009 at 7:20 am PDT

Very cool interview, i would love to see more. You guys could even get more cool and do more over Text Chat, sure its not as nice as voice but you could interview alot of the people behind the game.
jadjohnny
June 27, 2009 at 7:28 am PDT

I like what I see… the game look cool and the idea for weekly video interviews it seems way to cool. Consider it, guys :)
acmilanboy
June 27, 2009 at 7:35 am PDT

Great idea.
Naustradamus
June 27, 2009 at 8:13 am PDT

Game really looks cool!
I personally don’t like these old game remakes, but this one seems fun, may get it :)

I really like the PSeye interview … Something that’s been missing for way to long. What’s next? Home interviews and meet ups? (that may be a good idea .. announce an interview in advance, and invite 3-4 lucky people for a 5-10 min Q&A)

Only thing is the audio quality. He wasn’t bad, actually, pretty good. You though Jeff sounded clear, but the quality wasn’t there. Maybe change headsets? Just a though. You can find a really high quality one for way cheaper then most …. its the PS blue tooth headset :P
S-E-G
June 27, 2009 at 8:29 am PDT

hey Jeff, i just bought a logitech quickcam 9000 for my laptop and decided to try it out on the ps3, for the eye chat, the image quality is amazing,and it also has a built in mic witch also works great, i was wondering if you guys will ever allow 3rd party cams to work with the playstation eye games, i’m guessing with this type of camera would pick up my motions alot better then the playstation eye.
Blazebrova
June 27, 2009 at 8:46 am PDT

That was tight to see the interview conducted over PS Eye chat! Its renewed my interest in having sessions with my friends. There’s nothing like Jeff holding the interviews in person, but please do continue to have these chats if they allow more devs-to-community access via this blog!

With that being said, this looks like an awesome game! After all these years, I still cannot resist those breakout style games. It would be real cool to have games like this available in Home at the arcade. Since we have to wait for folks to get off machines anyway, it would be nice to somehow have a big screen over each arcade machine so spectators can see whats going on…you know, so when your going for the high score, u might draw a crows like back in the old days! Looks like a great game Mr. Wynands, cant wait for its release!
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 7:24 pm PDT
  
  We really need to look more into how we can support Home. It has been a little off our radar as we have been busy with a number of projects, but hopefully we can start exploring how to support it soon.
Spurvugle
June 27, 2009 at 9:20 am PDT

Ps eye ftw=)

Btw you guys need to make more ps eye games
ultrakilla
June 27, 2009 at 9:26 am PDT

how much does it cost? can we expect a playable demo?
jncasanova
June 27, 2009 at 10:27 am PDT

PS Eye chat interviews is a good idea, the video quality could be better but I can see great things coming.

There was one part almost at the end where Chris was looking all over the place like he wasn’t paying attention to the interview, haha, you could have edited that part.

The game looks really fun!
famousmortimer
June 27, 2009 at 10:39 am PDT

The game looks fantastic, I am a fan of breakout type games. I loved Magic Ball (though I found the controls to be a bit finicky) and also have played a ton of them on the iPhone. Good to see you guys take up the mantle of pushing the genre forward on the PS3.

I do want to say, however, that custom soundtracks are a must. I can understand working on a game and falling in love with the soundtrack you want everyone to hear… but music is so subjective. When it comes down to it there is no developer on earth that can put a better soundtrack to a game than I can (for only me, of course). So please, please, please add in custom soundtracks.
coolasj19
June 27, 2009 at 10:49 am PDT

if its 10$ this is a definate buy
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 7:25 pm PDT
  
  It will be less than $10 :)
Jackal888
June 27, 2009 at 11:23 am PDT

I do like what the game is doing but would rather play a game like this on my PSP. I cannot see me playing this on a PS3.
Ruaware2004
June 27, 2009 at 11:29 am PDT

I just wanted to know, if there was anyonelse having problems with the server. This only happens when I try to play Madden 07..Hall of Fame. Message: Unable to connect to EA servers at this time. This has been the case for atleast 2 days.
Ruaware2004
June 27, 2009 at 11:35 am PDT

Nevermind! I jnust read the news update! Ok, why are they shutting down the online sports games?
juanpipe
June 27, 2009 at 11:53 am PDT

Good idea about this type of chat! Now the only thing you need to do is make an interview with Harmonix about The Beatles: Rock Band and since this can have more thatn 2 people at a time, you can interview a Beatle himself! Jeff, are you listenning me? This game has gotten no love from the PlayStation brand (not even a trailer).
FPlus
June 27, 2009 at 12:12 pm PDT

“This is just occurring to us :-)”

Really Chris? REALLY? Is SONY the biggest name in TV’s, Movies, Camera’s, This far behind mentally?

So when is it going to Occur to SCE-E-A-J to actually listen to the Boardsus.playstation requests?

-Take Out Unused IN-GAME XMB Features to make the dam thing faster? Or better yet since 1 CPU is locked to XMB Os Why not actually use 99% of its power? I doubt that a single 3.2 GHz SPEs is having trouble loading 50 images…

-Xross-Game-Voice-Chat:
Microsoft DOES NOT HAVE A PATENT FOR THIS!!!!
B/C XFire & TeamSpeak invented it. So Ditch the “Play B3yond Room” That Voice chat has and let us access it from everywhere ( Settings , Internet Browser, In-Game, While Watching a HDD Video, Listening to Music…

Come on.. This is why MS is leading True Next Gen ( Wii doesn’t count ) They are Gamers Listening to Other Gamers on how to improve their console… Unlike SCE Fatcat’s listening to other fatcats on how to destroy the True Next Gen Console.
BZKlint
June 27, 2009 at 12:45 pm PDT

For a second I thought the title said “PlayStation Eye Chat: Shatner for PSN.”
Gr00v3r06
June 27, 2009 at 1:25 pm PDT

Nice interview. I thought it was a good spotlight on a small game.

Great use of the technology in using the PSEye.
RizlaTML
June 27, 2009 at 2:26 pm PDT

yay for ps eye… i bought one for burnout paradise and use it a lot now for a mic… i convinced two other friends of mine to buy a ps eye rather than the bluetooth mic jus cuz we sit close to our ps3’s thus the distance thing aint an issue… also 50 bucks for a camera and mic or 50 bucks jus for a mic… i rlly would like to see more games integrate the pseye into them… maybe even home should use the pseye… its more incentive to buy it if gonna use it lots… also the chat feature is awesome as my phone bill doesnt get racked up talking long distance sometimes… long live pseye… please sony promote this to devs around the world… wanna see pseye in more games… facial recognition for one idea !
SHOWBIZ7
June 27, 2009 at 3:27 pm PDT

did they use special lighting? i have the ps3 eye and i hav used it in 2 different homess and different rooms, changed lighting and added a lamp and it dont look that good making a video so what makes your interview look so good?
- Mario Wynands
  June 27, 2009 at 7:29 pm PDT
  
  We both did the interview from our respective offices so had pretty good office lighting plus daylight on both ends.