Sounds intriguing; one of these new unannounced games will come out this year:

Sony Online Entertainment president John Smedley has told GamesIndustry.biz that the company is set to launch an as yet unannounced new IP later this year.

Smedley was speaking at the DICE Summit in Las Vegas, which kicked off yesterday with a keynote presentation from Sony Pictures Digital boss Yair Landau.

During his speech Landau showed a clip of the company's new spy-themed MMO, stating, "We think this will take espionage entertainment to a new level."

But according to Smedley, "It's not really just an espionage game. It's a combination of espionage... Think 24 meets Alias meets Counterstrike."

He went on to reveal that SOE has several new IPs in the works, adding, "We have one coming out late this calendar year, and it hasn't even been announced."

Landau's keynote began with a discussion of the idea that "people move ideas back and forth from work to play". He observed, "If you can conceive of it, we can make it real."

Landau pointed to the visceral realism in Saving Private Ryan, stating, "What was really great about it was it launched a whole broad base of gameplay." He cited the games that followed - Medal of Honor, Call of Duty and Company of Heroes.

"When you look at what Saving Private Ryan did theatrically, it's a fraction of what those games have done," said Landau, who believes this is an indication of where the industry is going. "It's driving a lot of what we're trying to do from a Sony Online Entertainment standpoint."

"We've historically been very much in the men-in-tights genre, a lot of guys running around in[sic] broadswords," Landau said. "But we're now looking at a broader genre... We've started to immerse ourselves into the world of espionage."

Landau thinks the key to where this genre goes from a gaming standpoint "is how make it more real for you. You don't get to just play Bond, but you get to play yourself in this environment".

SOE's Seattle office is charged with the task of "putting a multiplayer environment in an espionage world, with both cooperative, team-oriented objectives and PVP," according to Landau.

"We think it's okay if you have MMOs where you wear tuxedos and carry a silencer, not just tights and a mace."

Sony has yet to announce the official name of the title, but Landau joked, "It's code-named Vista because we pushed it back about a year."

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=22677

Sounds like it could be cool.

They have a new console out and they are now working on new games? Get out....

Sounds fun, but then again, most games do in development stages....

Its always great to see a totally new game.

Yeah, that's the point - they are truly NEW games. Many people who debate the success potential of a console often point to a lineup of games coming out. Usually those games are sequels to top sellers, but we must remember that each generation has new concepts that end up being system sellers too.

An espionage MMO game? Now there's a new concept.

MMO games aren't exactly high on the gameplay list.....they are mostly about Questing for the solitary purpose of acquiring stuff.
Interesting to see how this plays out.

woops i thought this was a differen't game for a second

There is nothing that indicates U: DF is espionage or a multiplayer game. That title seems to be more of a action adventure game with a lot of exploration based on the screen shots and video released.

posted at gamespot news.

the clip showed a third-person shooter with spies engaged in firearms and hand-to-hand combat. The game featured all the Bond trademarks--femme fatales, exotic sportscars, and an exotic locale in Prague--and will be both cooperative and player-versus-player. Landau did not mention any release date, platform, or any other details.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/6165552.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;2

LOL, so much for an "original game idea" :)

Why the hell do spys/secret agents always wind up in freakin PRAGUE?!? :)

Hotels are cheap in Prague, you could live like a king in prague :)

...sure...as a secret agent...with your model wife and your foreign $140,000 car, keeping a low profile while you do your spying :D

A MMO spy game is starting to make me think of TAG: The Assasination Game, where every player in the world is the "marked target" of someone else in the world. :P

Works for that James guy ;)

New games...great to look forward to...
I'm tired of games that solely look to emulate or beat other games...

With average game dev time being 2 yrs these days, I wonder when we'll begin to see them. (besides motorstorm and resistance.....)

With average game dev time being 2 yrs these days, I wonder when we'll begin to see them. (besides motorstorm and resistance.....)

Maybe some of these were started in 2005...

An older article from the summer seems to point towards likely PS3<->PC interaction for all of these games:

August 1, 2006 - Though it hasn't been publicized as highly as blogs from other industry names, the blog of Sony Online Entertainment president, John Smedley is a good resource for MMO fans looking to find out what the company has coming down the pipeline. Yesterday in particular, the SOE head revealed a number of interesting tidbits regarding the PlayStation 3... Most notably, his company is working on a number of PC/ PS3 cross-platform MMOs.

"...Each of these new games is aimed at a very different market and all of them are in different genres," stated Smedley. "From our perspective, it's time to shake things up a bit in the online gaming space. We're aiming for very high production values that will bring us (and gamers) into completely new places. We're bringing mercenaries, spies, superheroes and a new whimsical world to life as I write this. We're also concentrating on bringing each of these games to you on both the PC and the upcoming PlayStation 3."

What are these games that the president hints at? Smedley provided hints to their identities further into his passage:

"With the exception of the DC Comics game we're working on, each of these games is an original IP. Our teams in San Diego, Austin, Seattle and Taiwan are excited about working on game worlds that we're developing ourselves."If all these comments aren't interesting enough, Smedley finishes his blog out with one final comment that really had us curious:

"One last thing: In the near future, you're going to read about another big development here at SOE. We recently acquired a game developer that is going to take us into a new space entirely. We're really excited about it and I think when you hear what it's about and see what they're working on you'll agree!"


http://ps3.ign.com/articles/722/722437p1.html

Wow, I wonder what that last paragraph is all about.

Mr Joe,

Are you the same Joeblow from PVCF?

Joeblow, interesting stuff...thanks for the link.

Mr Joe,

Are you the same Joeblow from PVCF?

Lol, I've posted maybe once or twice there in the last 2-3 years. It became obvious to me that the admin literally sold out to M$ once he got crazy editing anti-XBox threads and pro-PlayStation threads to keep the debates unfairly biased. It'd be more honest if he renamed the site Microsoft vs. the World.

Considering M$ has been caught and condemned for giving gifts and paying people to put up positive internet spin (free laptops to blogs, paying people to re-type Wiki articles, etc.), it's not hard for me to believe that integrity was sold for cheap at that site as well. I told him so and pretty much left after that.

Anyway, I did enjoy many of the discussions and was cool with a lot of the forum members (some have e-mailed me with props about some of my non-gaming observations I made there). I'm not sure who are, but I hope all is well. :)

Back on topic, I always found it funny that great Sony movies are being developed by other companies, which will often make them multi-platform. I mean if Sony were smart they would've made this new MMO spy game with a James Bond theme to widen the appeal. Activision now has that liscense until 2014 (after EA screwed it up).

p.s. Sony has 3 different MMO's planned for 2007....

A good MMO could be big boost for the PS3. I think a lot of people who stayed away from PC games would take the opportunity to give it a try. FFXI was fairly successful. Also, I can see WOW slowing down in the next year and people looking for something new.