Category Archives: Uncategorized

14 Years, 5 Months, 22 Days

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That is how long I worked for my now previous employeer. Yesterday, I was included in a round of layoffs that hit my organization. That is quite a long run and I am thankful for the many opportunities I had and the numerous people I was fortunate to work with. Honestly, we accomplished some great things:

  • The launch of the PlayStation 2, PSP, PlayStation 3, PS Vita, and PlayStation 4
  • Development and release of countless titles from small download (PSN) titles to well-respected AAA ones like God of War, Uncharted, MLB, Last of Us, and most recently Bloodborne
  • The integration of new studios and the spin-off of others
  • The relocation of a studio to a new state-of-the-art location
  • The progression of game development from CD to DVD to Blu-ray and similar development footprints from 100’s of MB to 100’s of TB of storage
  • The growth from region-specific development to a fully world-wide development, QA, hosting, and IT organization
  • The evolution of servers from physical to virtual and a similar progression of hosting from thousands of physical servers to private and public clouds

In large and, more likely, small ways I strived to make a difference and am proud of my legacy there. I wish those that remain well. It is a great group of people that are smart and very resourceful. I hope to work with them again.

It is challenging as this is the first time in my entire career that I don’t know what’s next. That’s ok. I’ll be working again soon. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the time with my family.

Two Games I’m Looking Forward To

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I was able to visit E3 yesterday in Los Angeles. As expected, there were plenty of games and even more people. Interestingly, the two games I’m most interested in weren’t playable or even present (on the floor, at least). I’ll just have to be

No Man’s Sky


This is an amazing looking game made up of a team of four. It’s procedurally-generated world and universe that will encourage exploration. I’m up for that.

Mirror’s Edge 2


I really liked the original and it went years with only rumors of a sequel. Last year they announced development and this year gave a little more information, but it clearly has some time to bake still since EA wasn’t showing it in their booth.

Neither has a release date, though, so I’m not expecting either until late this year, at best.

Alexander may be great, but he’s small at the moment

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With our oldest cat, Mocha, dying on Monday, there was much talk about getting a new cat (mostly from my son, Brian). Previously, we had said that there would be no new pets and that we would consider a cat at some point in the future. After re-evaluating that decision, I realized that the kids never really had that “new pet” experience and so didn’t resist the “investigation” (surfing rescue websites, reading about different breeds, etc.) that they began.

Not surprisingly, a trip to the local rescue “just to look” resulted in a new member being added to the family. May I please introduce Alexander the Great (Alex, for short):

We’re trying to get him aclimated as easily as possible. He’s been spending almost all of his time in my daughter’s room but has been exposed to the other cat (Bella) and the dog (Patrick). Patrick is the problem, though. He’s big (~100 lbs) with his head roughly the size of Alex himself and at only 8 weeks, Alex isn’t sure how to handle that. The current set-up is Patrick kept downstairs and Alex having free reign though, so far, only staying upstairs. There shouldn’t be a problem, but may take some time for Alex realize that he won’t be a chew toy. There’s actually no risk of that but he doesn’t know that.