SOE recently published a list of the folks from SOE who will be attending SOE FanFaire from August 5th to the 8th in Las Vegas.  The lists includes what looks like almost all of the community managers across the various games, as well as developers on most of their existing titles, although it doesn’t appear like anyone from The Agency MMO is listed.  Perhaps they’ll be a surprise show?

For more details on SOE FanFaire, stay tuned here or check out the official site.

The latest the Agency trailer looks almost too good to be true. My first thought while watching was that it looked as frenetic and smooth as a singleplayer action game, which has traditionally been difficult for massively multiplayer offerings to achieve. Let’s hope that the game really turns out this way, and that we’re all capable of actually running this monster!

For more information on the Agency, check out the official site.

In an interview posted by The Seattle Times, John Smedley President of Sony Online Entertainment, gave his thoughts on MMORPGs and where they fall in for PS3.

Q: Does the realignment of your group, from Sony Pictures to Sony Computer Entertainment, mean that you’re going to try boosting PlayStation 3′s online network with your MMO [massively multiplayer online] games.

A: I think MMOs are going to be a real strong selling point for the PS3 long term — there’s going to be some great ones on the PS3. You’re not going to find “The Agency” on the [Xbox] 360.

Q: Have MMOs reached the mainstream yet?

A: I would say they’re getting more mainstream. If I were characterizing it, I would say think of the video-gaming industry five years ago. That’s kind of where I think we’re at. … Five years ago, do you think “Grand Theft Auto IV” would have done $500 million [in opening-week sales]? To me, video games are just reaching the real mass-market now. That is going to translate to the MMO side of the business.

Q: Do you think everything will be an MMO in the future?

A: I don’t. I think it’s just like in the single-player or low multiplayer; it’s just about the individual games. We think there’s a huge, hungry audience waiting for that to come to the MMO world. It doesn’t mean everything’s going to be an MMO. I’m sure there’s always going to be single-player games.

Good news if your a MMORPG fan and have a PS3. But personally, I think I’ll stick with my PC.

Codemasters Online, who is set to release NetDevil’s new space based MMORPG Jumpgate Evolution (PC Only), has recently announced to gamesindustry.biz that they are set to publish two more MMOs for consoles. With this announcement it seems that the gaming industry is finally warming up to the idea of MMO’s on consoles, as of up until now there have only been a hand full of MMOs on all consoles combined.

SoE’s The Agency, Funcom’s Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventure are set to be released within a year. Then you have the untitled NCsoft PlayStation 3 project which might be released as early as Q4 2008. Along with these, there are also a hand full of other MMO’s that have been announced such as a new Final Fantasy MMO.

Indeed it seems as though the MMO has fully arrived on consoles. So what what was the hold up? David Solari, vice president and general manager of Codemasters Online Gaming, stated that one of the bid hurdles with console MMO’s was the business model.

“It’s got to be the right business model. It’s more difficult because the first-parties take a share of the revenue – and it’s quite significant share.”

Can you imagine WOW having to give a percentage of its revenue to Microsoft and Apple? Ouch!

With this next set of MMOs set to hit the consoles late this year, it will be interesting to see how things go when gamers have more than 1 or 2 MMOs to choose from. If we see some flops it just might scare away future MMOs from consoles and send them back to PCs where PC gamers will continue to have there pick of the litter.