Infinite Monkey Theory

Hi everyone. This is PJ, and I’m a senior producer at SCEA San Diego. There has been a ton of talk about the origins of High Velocity Bowling since the title was shown at Gamer’s Day in May. We didn’t get a whole lot of coverage during the event, due to all of the other amazing games that were shown, and High Velocity Bowling kind of got grouped with the other PlayStation Network games. It’s a pretty common misconception that High Velocity Bowling is Sony’s “answer” to Wii Sports Bowling. We came up with the idea of using the SIXAXIS controller for bowling on August 23rd, 2006 – I know the exact date because it was my birthday…Eddy Cramm (who is a Sr. Designer on MLB ’07) and I had taken the day off to get a couple rounds of golf in, a rare luxury these days. Out on the course, we talked about using the controller as a bowling interface (we both carry 200+ averages in our current bowling league) and both loved the idea. He sent a text message to our studio director that night and my team (small, but dedicated) started work on it the next day. While we weren’t surprised by the inclusion of bowling in Wii Sports a month later, we knew that we were taking it a step further once that game launched. I know I’m looking forward to the launch of High Velocity Bowling and hope you all like the ladder/progression/unlocking mechanic that we’re going with.