Print is dead? Sony reckon so…
A press release from Sony makes for interesting reading:
Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) and Ziff Davis Game Group announced today the companies have mutually agreed to discontinue production on the Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (OPM) in North America. The final issue will be dated January 2007. OPM is a publication officially licensed by SCEA.
"A key element of the OPM magazine was the playable PlayStation disc packed in with every magazine. With the launch of the PLAYSTATION®3 (PS3™) computer entertainment system and its full network and Web capabilities, we are focused on delivering content via the PlayStation Network and PlayStation.com website, not discs,” said Peter Dille, Senior Vice President of Marketing, SCEA. “While we have enjoyed a very good run with the printed version of Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine, we feel it is important to shift assets online to meet the needs of today’s PlayStation consumer. This is a natural evolution of our content delivery strategy.”
Entertainment content, such as high definition downloadable game trailers and demos previously found only on the DVD disc packed in with each OPM issue, will now be available to everyone on the PlayStation.com site and on the PlayStation Network, accessible only through the PS3. SCEA will continue to work closely with the editorial staff at Ziff Davis, as well as other partners, in the development of content for the PlayStation Network and on news coverage, previews, reviews, game developer profiles and in-depth executive interviews for all Ziff Davis properties.
So it looks like Sony are going for online content delivery in a big way. Good for them! Services such as Steam and Xbox Live have shown that this is a sustainable and popular way to get content to your target users. Not so good for OPM though, so one has to wonder why just shifting to online content delivery has somehow caused a mag to be canned.
Over here the likes of OXM are still going, even a year after the Xbox 360 was released and, whilst we can't comment on the fortunes of the print guys, there must be something in it or they'd have closed up shop by now, surely?
Ah well, we'll probably never know, but I suspect that there's more to it than just a lack of cover mounts... of course, if anyone would like to tell us, you know where you can find us.
