Hi guys,
My name’s Charlotte Panther. I’m in charge of PR here at SCEE Europe, and I work closely with our PlayStation.Blog team to make sure you get all the latest news from our activities and events. It’s been almost three months now since we launched PlayStation.Blog in Europe, so I wanted to give you a quick update on what’s been going on over here.
Many of you have asked when we’ll be launching the French, German, Italian and Spanish language versions of the blog. We’re still working hard on rolling out the regional versions. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to launch before gamescom as we’d originally hoped, but I wanted to let you know that we’re working closely with the local offices in each country, and things should be up and running around the Tokyo Game Show timeframe in September.
As you know, we’ve had many different people from all over the SCEE universe contributing to the EU version of PlayStation.Blog, and that will of course continue. But today I’ve got some exciting information to share with you. The good news is that because your response to the EU PlayStation.Blog has been so positive, we’ve been able to persuade the Powers-That-Be that we need to have someone in charge of the blog on a full-time basis, much like in the US.
And I’m happy to say we’ve found the perfect person in Jem Alexander. I know many of you will recognise the name, as Jem comes to us fresh from covering the PlayStation beat for the gaming blog, Joystiq, so I’m sure you’ll agree he’s the perfect man for the job!
I’ll let Jem introduce himself properly, but suffice it to say we’re really excited to have him on board just in time for gamescom. He’ll be hunting down all your favourite development teams and bringing you live news, direct from the show floor. Let’s just hope he’s brought along a good sense of humour and a comfy pair of shoes!
31 CommentsAdd Yours
1
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 8:04 am by Delriach
Awesome! Welcome Jem! I wish I had a job working with Sony…closest thing was working at PlayStation Central at lollapalooza this weekend in Chicago. -_-;
2
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 8:18 am by Patriotbball5460
Jem congrats man, we started a thread out on VGEVO.com about you leaving, I called in the thread:
http://vgevo.com/site/showpost.php?p=297647&postcount=9
rea lly happy you are staying in the PS sphere, I love your writing styles and were def. my favorite writer on Joystiq, they have lost a great blogger but the PS Blog has def. gained one!
Hopefully you can get onto the PSNation podcast again aswell, we’ve been missing you on there! Your the new EU Professor PlayStation!
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 9:13 am by Charlotte Panther
Yeah, we’re really excited about having Jem on board. He’ll be around later today to respond to your comments and answer questions!
3
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 8:18 am by x-SpiderMike-x
Well at least it’s Jem and now one of the militant XBots they have running around Joystiq. I find the vast majority of the articles on there quite unappealing since PS3Fanboy merged with the rest of the rabble.
4
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 8:29 am by Caemgen
Great!
If there are any plans for a Dutch blog, please let me know.
I’d really love to contribute and help you guys out.
5
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 8:33 am by wotta
Congrats on the new job Jem, hope to see you around at a few gaming events.
Joe – http://www.wonderwallweb.com
6
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 8:36 am by BiosNova
welcome to the blog!
7
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 8:38 am by CrusherX
Welcome, good Sir! It’s great to see our countries being recognised; what you’ve all done with the EU blog in the short time since creation has been fantastic.
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 9:15 am by Charlotte Panther
Thanks – glad you like the EU blog. We’ll keep you posted about the other country rollouts.
8
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 8:59 am by rakwarrior
Thanks for the update Charlotte. I think you’ve found the perfect guy for the job. I can’t believe you got someone from Joystiq!
I wanted to ask about Sony’s support for Arabic countries. There are NO games in arabic, not even subtitles for cutscenes. It really should become standard. It’s really a very crucial thing. Is France or Germany more important that the United Arab Emirates..no it’s not
Alot of my non-english speaking friends were put off from buying many dialogue oriented games like Fallout 3. That’s why you have a small percentage of gamers here and an even smaller percentage that doesn’t play PES 6 every day and nothing else. When playing online, you know there is a difference between playing in London or here in Dubai. Update Downloads take forever, for everyone. Where in the US for example its only a small percentage that have this problem.
If you can’t get basic arabic support for games I think an Arabic blog would be impossible for you to establish. Maybe the problem is that you don’t have a strong office here in the Mideast.
Sorry for making this really long and I hope I get a reply.
Thanks
9
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 9:18 am by D1mas_
What about Russian Blog? Do You work on it or not? Can i hope to view russian blog? when?
thanks!
10
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 9:20 am by KAP
Welcome to this crazy blog Jem im always on joystiqs site
11
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 9:20 am by MobileTone
“we need to have someone in charge of the blog on a full-time basis,”
i think you should have [JohnSketch] in as full time consultant. much better man for the job.
Joystiq! -pffft-
http://threespeech.co.cc – dunking biscuits in the works coffee
12
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 9:23 am by MobileTone
@ rakwarrior – “Is France or Germany more important that the United Arab Emirates.”
YES! yes it is, this is the EU blog, take your grief elsewhere.
13
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 9:40 am by KAP
@8 Well look, least you get some games early. And not to sound ignorant but does a huge number of people speak english in Dubai?
14
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 9:58 am by Shin-Ra
Loving the new Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios site:
http://www.worldwidestudios.net/
Finally everyone can get a good picture of what WWS is made up of.
15
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 10:10 am by makingdamage
I think it´s great that you guys continue to work on the communication between sony and the fans!
Keep it boys and girls!
16
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 10:18 am by Jack-Bauer-89
YaaaaaaaaaY Jem
17
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 10:40 am by Ghidora84
Welcome aboard Jem!
Ive been reading Joystick for at least a year now on a daily basis!
18
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 10:45 am by AcidCrashX
Ah cool. Welcome to the team Jem and good luck!
.. no seriously… good luck.. some of these fanboys foam at the mouth ‘>__>
19
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 11:04 am by SabbathRider
Great news! I regularly read jostiq, there are some great articles on that site. It will be nice to have someone around the blog full time.
Good decision Sony!
20
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 11:07 am by ReinmarSWE
Could someone please tell me what the status on bringing VidZone to Sweden is?!?
21
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 11:29 am by Ti_dus
So I have the question! ;D Can you show us some pictures of ps3 slim?
22
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 11:31 am by superaktieboy
speaking of gamescom, will we see a live stream on PS Home? or anywhere else for that matter?
23
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 11:40 am by enormhi
Hi, will the different regions get different content on the blog?
24
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 11:54 am by jadehare
Hi Charlotte Panther! many of us know where you came from and what you do.
we appreciate all you have done so far. it’d be awesome if you made a lil’ post now and then about upcoming games / events you’re very excited about.
I hadn’t realized expanded versions aren’t up yet – my vote also goes to Russian.
Yes, there’s definately something beautiful happening on EU blog. consumers and teams have connected (woo Evolution Studios!) with their own unique views. congratz to us all & Jem. He’s a great host. PS3: I pre-ordered for Heavy Rain, but I stayed for the ommunity.
25
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 12:22 pm by Iorghe
I don’t really care about the blog in other languages. It’s cool that you are going trough the effort tough.
What I notice immediatly is that you’re only mentioning countries where the VidZone is available. Is this Sony’s new approach to the European market?
26
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 12:48 pm by Cartmaniac
I don’t and prolly never will understand why go through all this hussle of translating blog in other languages when the PSN store in its current state is only usable to 5 countries in European Union (not to mention other European countries). Enable paypal in PSN Store if you don’t want to accept other countrie’s creditcards.
27
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 2:25 pm by OttoT
En hoe zit het met een Nederlandstalige blog?
And how about a Dutch blog?
28
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 3:32 pm by Smoutefretter_BE
Personally I’m not interested in seeing other languages to the blog. Maybe some will but I rather have one blog, one language and so you can’t miss any content!
but it’s great that you put effort into it!
PS. Is it true the 3h conference is cut down to 1h @ gamescom? please answer!
29
Posted on 12 August, 2009 at 7:34 pm by EncodedFun
Personaly i dont mind that the blog is in english.
30
Posted on 13 August, 2009 at 12:34 pm by Michelasso
Hello Charlotte (I *love* your last name. grrrr!
)
I just gave it a look at the new trophies on-line. Just a question… Why is it so much FASTER to get all friend trophies from the web than what it is to check just one single player from the PS3?? Using the same internet connection, obviously. Checking trophies from the PS3 is the biggest waste of time. t takes ages. Any idea to fix it?
31
Posted on 14 August, 2009 at 7:33 pm by elephant_stone
Congrats to Jem!!!!
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