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Journey preview: A million little fibers | Joystiq:

I imagined the feelings I had playing Journey are the same Jacques Cousteau might have felt as he explored the seas. There’s a certain magic in discovery and figuring things out for ourselves, putting the puzzle together without a hand to hold us. I may have questioned the point of my own journey while I was there, but I can’t wait to pick it back up again.

It is this very sort of open-ended, interpretive experience that I find most appealing in all arts and entertainment. We need things to remind us to marvel and encourage us to wonder.

Also: I’m looking forward to this game. If you couldn’t tell.

SS: Now, you’re saying this as a Call of Duty player, aren’t you? You like shooters.

JC: Yeah. I like fighting games too. They’re fun. But as I get older, what’s the point in pulling off another infinite combo? What does that do for your life? It’s not useful. People still play chess because strategic thinking is useful. Brain training games, fitness games…these have relevance. People don’t have much time to waste, so they want relevance. Whether it’s emotional relevance, like experiencing joy or sadness, or intellectual relevance, or social relevance.

Jenova Chen Explains Journey: Social Relevance and Artistic Inspirations – PlayStation Blog

All About the PlayStation 1’s Design:

That explains how the controller got its look, but not how the buttons got their rather unique names. “That was also pretty tough,” Goto revealed. “Other game companies at the time assigned alphabet letters or colors to the buttons. We wanted something simple to remember, which is why we went with icons or symbols, and I came up with the triangle-circle-X-square combination immediately afterward. I gave each symbol a meaning and a color. The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one’s head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink. The circle and X represent ‘yes’ or ‘no’ decision-making and I made them red and blue respectively. People thought those colors were mixed up, and I had to reinforce to management that that’s what I wanted.”

Hardware design is one area where Sony has always been the one to take a stand and make something iconic. The Playstation is a prime example.

In delivering his company’s Q2 2010 financial results, CEO Reed Hastings stated, “Before our next [earnings] call in October, we expect to be launching a major new version of our Sony PS3 user interface which doesn’t require a disc, and is dynamically updated continuously with the latest Netflix UI improvements.

Great news. Via Joystiq.