Sony Online Entertainment has definitely improved in leaps and bounds over the years, and now with their licensing of the Unreal Engine 3 and their acquisition of Worlds Apart, there is definitely nowhere to go but up for future SOE MMOs. Now, SOE's Senior Director for Corporate Communications, Chris Kramer, is speaking up about the company's future plans and what they plan to do with Worlds Apart.

He gamely mentioned that their last two PSP games (Untold Legends: The Warrior's Code and Field Commander) "have significant online play modes using the PSP’s ability to connect to WiFi networks. Our next PSP title, the recently announced Cash Money Chaos, and our PS3 launch title, Dark Kingdom, will also have a number of multiplayer modes...Online entertainment for us means much, much more than MMOs." Chris also mentioned that they are also evaluating on releasing Online Trading Card Games of the current SOE franchises like EverQuest and Planetside.

He also discussed SOE's Station Exchange. In fact, he divulges that "SOE is currently working on a white paper that will be released towards the end of this month that will highlight a lot of really interesting information about the service and how people are using it. We’re still examining how it might be implemented into other live games, but we’re also looking at designing with the service in mind for several new titles."

And in an interview like this, it is almost impossible not to be able to talk about Unreal Engine 3. The communications honcho mentioned numerous perks of working with UES3. Our developers are able to spend more time working on core gameplay mechanics and design, which is where we as a company excel. Our developers working with UE3 have been able to rapid-prototype their titles, which means that they can quickly bring up roughly playable milestones in a much shorter timeframe. Instead of having to re-invent the wheel, a few of our new projects have been able to actually test game concepts, look-and-feel and direction in the space of months, instead of years.

No way to go but up? Or could it be a fateful blunder on SOE's part? Only time could tell.