It's a requirement for Xbox 360 certification that all XBL arcade and retail game releases must incorporate achievements into the title. And now that "Home" for the PS3 has been officially unveiled, we know that Sony's trophy approach is similar to achievements. They're simply there to collect and place in your room, and Sony's Phil Harrison has confirmed that developers are not required to implement trophies into their titles in order to obtain PS3 certification.
During a recent interview with Kotaku, Harrison believes most developers will eventually see just how easy it is to add in the feature, and therefore, it shouldn't be a requirement. He says it's simply a matter of booting up Maya and converting one of their characters or environments into a portable trophy. Still, Sony is not forcing the option on anyone.
"I don't think every game needs to have trophies, my personal opinion. I don't think we need to have it. But if it's meaningful to the community, then just the simple fact of buying the game, owning the game could trigger a trophy. [And[ for them to take a small bit of 3D geometry, maybe a character, an object, or a weapon, what ever, and put it through RSDK and create an icon, it's like ten minutes work. So this is very low impact. Very low intensity work that would be required to support Home in a very simple straight forward way."
He's got a point. Gamers seem to enjoy the achievement feature in the 360, so it's likely they'll appreciate the trophies in the PS3 as well. And given the ease of instituting the option in a game, despite the lack of a requirement, we can probably expect to see most PS3 games sporting trophies by next year.
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