theage.com.au has a report on the Australian Game Developers Conference with comments from Microsoft's director of the Xbox Advanced Technology Group, Laura Fryer , and Sony Computer Entertainment's executive vice-president of development, Phil Harrison, on the local industry...
"There's a fantastic amount of stuff going on here, it's great," Harrison says.Sony would consider setting up an Australian games studio, he says. "If you look at where development centres are growing, Australia is a big growth area.
"By and large, Australian game development has lacked ambition on the global stage and has not competed effectively. But I believe it has the determination to change that, and possibly with our assistance we can accelerate the rate of that change."
But he also warns that the industry is changing..
"Australian companies have a choice: they can either adapt or die. They either need to become very much larger or very much more specialised. If you want to compete on the global stage you have to compare and compete effectively with the best of Europe, Japan and the US."
There are some other interesting comments by John De Margheriti (Micro Forte) that echo that as well. Also worth noting from the article is that Wired named Melbourne is one of four games development hot spots in the world! Read the article here.