Sony: We're evolving into service providers

Home evidence of transition from product provider to service provider.

Sony is evolving from being a product provider to a service provider, it said.

Speaking yesterday at the Games 3.0 conference in London, which is part of the London Games Festival, Jamie MacDonald, vice president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios, said the upcoming PS3 Second Life style virtual world PlayStation Home will "continue to evolve, change and develop over time", a policy it was employing with "all of our titles these days".

PlayStation Home, the oft-delayed online service for PS3, is set for open beta by the end of the year, although no official date has been announced regarding its widespread roll-out.

He said: "The thing that I should stress about Home, unlike a typical boxed product it will continue to evolve and change and develop over time, it's not a one off thing. Indeed that's the way we're developing all of our titles these days. We're becoming service providers almost rather than product providers."

MacDonald added that while Home was "revolutionary" for Sony Computer Entertainment, it was part of a wider trend in other digital media.

He said: "I think from a Sony Computer Entertainment point of view it's pretty revolutionary in a sense that we haven't done anything like it ever before. But it's also part of a wider trend that we see in other digital media and areas. I do think that it will greatly enhance the online experience for PlayStation users and I just can't wait for it to be out there really because we've been working on it for so long."

What do you think readers? Is Sony turning evolving from a product provider into a service provider? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.