14 DAY TRIAL // The core experience of E3 2012 might be linked to high-profile video games, but a lot of users are now using their home consoles for more than gaming and Sony plans to make the PlayStation 3 more attractive in the near future with a new service called simply Wonderbook.
Andrew House, who is the president and the chief executive officer at the PlayStation Group, told the E3 2012 audience that, “Wonderbook puts a physical book in your hands. It isn’t limited to just stories.”
He added, “Imagine sailing the seven seas to discover an atlas. Walking with dinosaurs.”
According to House, Sony is already working with a number of authors, education centers and scientists in order to create a number of titles for Wonderbook that should offer both teaching and entertainment to PlayStation 3 users.
One of the first titles for Wonderbook is something called The Book of Spells, created with direct input from J.K. Rowling, the author best known for creating the Harry Potter series of books, who is now seeking to add more trivia and side experience to the universe.
The Book of Spells is part of the wider Pottermore project and will allow fans to use the PlayStation Move as a sort of magic wand in order to explore the book and, at least at one point, directly interact with content from it.
At one point, the Sony demonstration showed a dragon flying out of the page of the Book of Spells and then set the entire virtual object on fire.
It’s not clear whether all the Wonderbook projects will be as detailed as the Harry Potter-based one or whether some of them will offer a more traditional reading experience.
Wonderbook is an interesting initiative and might extend the life of the PlayStation 3 console, but it remains to be seen whether it can succeed on a market where there’s already strong competition from more traditional e-book readers.
