Asian electronics giant Sony is assessing proposals for a research and development facility in Perth, with speculation that the site may focus on games development for its global PlayStation brand.
Asian electronics giant Sony is assessing proposals for a research and development facility in Perth, with speculation that the site may focus on games development for its global PlayStation brand.
The move would follow IBM and Motorola, which opened R&D offices in Western Australia in 2001 and 2003 respectively.
The prevalence and creativity of high-quality computer science graduates in Perth were major factors behind their decisions.
The software development facility proposed by Sony would employ 200 software programmers and developers to work on the game development for the company’s yet-to-be-released PlayStation 3.
WA Business News understands that Sony Singapore is behind the plans and has had discussions with at least one Western Australian university concerning graduate employment opportunities.
While Sony Singapore did not respond to questions by WA Business News this week, sources close to the deal suggest the company is eager to establish a development house similar to that operated by Motorola.
Motorola established its $20 million software research engineering centre at the University of Western Australia in a collaborative deal, which included a State Government contribution of $4.5 million and UWA funding of the purpose built facility.
According to Motorola communications and public affairs manager Russell Grimmer, Perth’s software development graduates are one of the key reasons the group chose to establish the centre in Perth.
“The availability of good quality graduates was part of our reason,” Mr Grimmer said.
“We did a lot of research around the world and found that people in Perth were highly skilled and were not in as high demand as somewhere like Sydney.
“One of the other reasons was the enthusiasm of the universities to collaborate.”
An industry source, who confirmed that Sony Singapore was interested in setting up an operation similar to Motorola’s software engineering centre, said Perth software graduates were viewed as highly skilled in programming but, more importantly, also had creative flair.
“The thing about programming for games is that the person has to be a bright programmer with a good mathematics background but also has to be really creative.
“They need the non-creative logic and the creative stuff as well, and people in Perth have that,” he said.
The source said that Sony wasn’t alone in actively seeking graduates from Perth’s universities.
“I’m conservatively excited that there is an upward trend for computer science people in Perth because they perceive Australia as having the skills necessary to produce this type of work,” he said.
“There are positive signs that things are on the up because of a perception of Australian creativity.”
Motorola already is looking at expanding its Perth operations.
It was proposed that the centre would employ 200 people within five years.
The company is recruiting an additional 30 staff, meaning 100 employees will be employed by the centre by Christmas this year.
A spokesman for Sony Australia could not comment on whether Sony Singapore had any intentions to establish a software development centre in Perth, adding there was no anticipated release date for its PlayStation 3 Next Generation console.
Industry speculation suggests Sony and rival Microsoft, which produces the Xbox, will launch new game consoles early next year.