The title of this blog is Dreams. I think people, both users and creators, have dreams. And, I believe dreams is at the foundation of the keyword I coined Community of Interest. In this blog, I want to introduce you to some activities at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) that relate to Community of Interest and about Dreams, which aims to nurture the next generation of creators.

■ eSports Community

The first example is a professional Call of Duty: WWII eSports tournament which SIE sponsors exclusively for the Japanese market. SIE recently hosted the fifth round of the professional tournament at Sony Headquarters, with the top teams advancing to the grand finals at Tokyo Game Show 2018. The venue was packed with approx. 1700 people including fans from the general public. Their passion for the game showed through as they excitedly cheered on the players. Call of Duty is said to have 100 million users worldwide, and it is a prime example of a global scale Communities of Interest that exist on the PlayStation platform. I also think eSports tournaments is a "live" version of the game. This made me realize once again that entertainment is in fact "live." I hope that everyone at SIE can continue to leverage eSports and other initiatives to further vitalize the various Communities of Interest that exist on our PlayStation platform.

(From right) John Kodera, Atsushi Morita, Hiroyuki Oda of SIE

■ My Visit to WWS Europe

Prior to attending IFA, I had a chance to visit Worldwide Studios Europe (WWS Europe) in London, which is part of SIE's 1st party game development studios. In addition to Guerrilla Games, who are known for Horizon Zero Dawn, WWS Europe has several game production studios, including London Studio, who has a keen focus on VR games. The creative team at London Studio showed me a host of VR initiatives, including Blood & Truth, a PS VR game, a Breaking Bad VR experience being produced in collaboration with Sony Pictures Television, and a live music performance in VR made in collaboration with Sony Music Entertainment (SME), which gives a totally immersive experience as if you're listening to the performance in person.

Enjoying a VR experience

■ Dreams

From the perspective of Community of Interest, one game that resonated with me on a very deep level was Dreams, set to release next year. This title is being developed by Media Molecule, the team famous for the LittleBigPlanet franchise. As with the LittleBigPlanet, Dreams attempts to establish a new genre of "Creative Gaming," where users become the creators and can easily model their own work of art, for example, as an architect, fashion designer or a graphic designer in 3D. Not only does Dreams provide the tools for users to let their creativity run free, it also vitalizes its community by letting players view works of art created by other users and experience them in VR. I found myself deeply moved as the team told me about their grand vision to nurture the next generation of creators. Once released, I hope that Dreams will capture a new and engaged community of creators.

(From left) Alex Evans, Mark Healey, Kareem Ettouney, Siobhan Reddy from Dreams creative team, and head of WWS Europe, Michael Denny

■ Dreams introduction video and official trailer

In this blog, I wrote about Communities of Interest through the lens of SIE's activities. But, Communities of Interest are also formed around musicians such as Adele, movies such as Jumanji and Spider-Man, TV shows like The Crown and Breaking Bad, as well as around products with recurring relationship with users such as α and aibo. I believe the formation of Communities of Interest that link users and creators through a deep and continuing relationship symbolizes our efforts at "getting closer to people."

■ Social Significance of Community of Interest

Furthermore, I believe that creating Communities of Interest is one of Sony's missions in society. Diversity is in Sony's DNA, and we are a company that embraces diverse values and sensibilities. Sony's stance of welcoming the creation of a wide variety of Communities of Interest and our commitment to getting closer to our users and creators is what sets us apart from the data mega players who try to appeal to the general public at large. As such, it is crucial that we continue to follow through with these efforts moving forward.

■ Revisiting our Mission, Vision, Values

Lastly, I want to touch on Sony's new Mission, Vision, and Values that I discussed two blog posts ago, for which I continue to receive encouraging feedback on. Ultimately, I would like to summarize our MVV in relatively simple terms that is both easy to remember and enables everyone to put into practice. At the same time, precisely because of this, I also want to share the background of the MVV in more detail. I plan to think this through very carefully and hope to share it with you before the end of the year. Please keep an eye out for another update.

*Reference

■ Blood & Truth official trailer

■ SME artist Tom Grennan VR content