What makes a Next Generation game?
Allard: I think a lot of things. Obviously the visual fidelity is one thing, where you could take a screenshot and publish it in your magazine or website and people are drawn to that… We’re visual thinkers.
The real magic in the gaming experience itself is in the interactivity. My experience is that the visuals, aside from being something you can print in a magazine and recognise very easily, the visuals… they shatter the illusion of what the creators are trying to generate. I played through the same level that Grant showed on Call of Duty twice, with all the smoke in the building at the very end. The smoke effects and everything else… just the intensity of the experience. When the visual fidelity is this good, the illusion is not instantly shattered. This is where the other magical components come in.
Cutting the controller cord is part of that magic. It just feels that much more immersive because I don’t feel like I’m tethered. It’s not dragging across the carpet or the coffee table, I’m more in the experience. The audio – Kameo has got a full orchestral score: unfortunately, when I finished the game, the music hadn’t been checked in. The orchestral score for the game actually draws you in the game even more.
Finally, the community is the underplayed part and the part we don’t know how to talk about yet, and as passionately as I believe about it, I think it’s very hard to articulate into words what the community does. If you watched the Perfect Dark presentation last night, you’d say “wow, every single player level I played I can now play co-operatively” and you saw that and could get a sense for it. It’s hard to get that across to 1,100 people who don’t have controllers in their hands… and to Steve’s point about genre busting. I don’t know if that’s genre busting, but that’s what I want to do. And that’s what video games have not really been for me – a real collaborative experience. Where I’ve got a full screen to myself and they’ve got a full screen to themselves.
Most importantly, the game designers said, what’s it gonna take for two people to go through this level co-operatively and design a level around that?
Are all the levels co-operative?
Allard: Yes. You can play every level single player, co-op and co-op online.
How long do you think you have before the PS3 comes out?
Allard: I don’t know! I read what you guys wrote on that! I keep hearing Spring ’06. I wouldn’t believe Spring ’06 considering everything else I’ve heard. It’d be interesting to see what they’re reaction is to our worldwide launch and whether or not they follow suit.
Gerhardt was very eloquent last night in saying “We’re doing the right thing, We’re doing the gutsy thing. Everyone else should be doing the same kind of thing, hint hint!”
I think that was in no small way a ‘hint’ to the other console manufacturers. Whether you’re doing a handheld or anything else, do the same thing as it’s killing the publishers. They’re more at risk, they put more money into it and they can’t capitalise on that on a worldwide level. They’re trying to release games worldwide. They’re trying to do regional content and derivations of content, and when they can’t do it all on the same schedule, it’s a killer for them! It’ll be interesting to see what they do.
What do you think of the PS3?
Allard: They’ve got an interesting lot of claims lined up. What they have claimed versus what they have shown is a very big gap.
In order for them to show all of the things that they have claimed, they’re gonna need an eight hour press conference sometime in the very near future to give everyone confidence that spring ’06 worldwide is gonna happen.
We tried to keep the conference as short as we could. We didn’t show arcade, we didn’t show family settings, a concern a lot of parents have. We’ve done a phenomenal job with letting you control what your child can do on the system to give you more comfort, with the content online and offline. I mean, there’s a lot more to this story, which is why we’ve given you a whole day with us to get as much of the story as you can.
I think Sony’s talked a lot more than they’ve shown and it’s hard to line up their claims of Spring ’06 with how they’re gonna get there. It’s very ambitious and I still can’t buy a 1080p television set in the U.S, let alone two of them, to enjoy that and I don’t have a gigabit Ethernet in my home, so I can’t enjoy that, and they don’t have vent holes in the side of their console yet, so air can flow through those very powerful chips, so it seems like they still have a lot of work to do. They have very nice movies though!
Xbox Live. We hear figures of 2 million users in Europe. Can you break that down for us?
Allard: Not enough!
[b]And the U.S…[/b]
Allard: U.S is certainly the driver and I don’t have a number and I won’t give you a number off the top of my head. But I’ll tell you what some of the challenges have been for us in Europe…
The biggest challenge frankly has been eliminating the credit card. We used that both to establish a billing system we could manage as well as overcoming the different laws and policies of each country, with using voice and that kind of thing.
We’ve actually removed that restriction now and we’ve rebuilt our entire billing infrastructure, we’re working with retail, we’re working with broadband and we’re gonna find new ways to get people on.
We’ve now set up trials as well, where you don’t need to sign up anywhere or scratch any cards. You can now try multiplayer or gold for a weekend. Trials will drive participation.
The third problem we had in Europe was regional community. There’s a critical mass that happens where you don’t have enough people speaking German - ‘it’s a very nice service, but I don’t want to use it in my second language’. And we’re working on better penetration there.
Also, if you go on Xbox.com, you have all the features I demonstrated on the community, on the web. You’ll be able to go online and see what friends are online, leave them messages, see what they’re doing, compare gamerscores and so on…you’ll be able to leave feedback.
You’ll be able to put all those details in your web page. You can put it in your blog. We’re doing all these things to try and increase the community. So as well as removing the credit card restriction, you have an entrée of free trials, the web aspect where you can build the community and connect the dots and get to those people who were afraid of going online. I believe we will overcome that hurdle and get to critical mass, and the different non-English speaking territories and Europe generally and really get the ball rolling.
Europe is very important to us not just in console growth but Live growth as well.
Allard: I think a lot of things. Obviously the visual fidelity is one thing, where you could take a screenshot and publish it in your magazine or website and people are drawn to that… We’re visual thinkers.
The real magic in the gaming experience itself is in the interactivity. My experience is that the visuals, aside from being something you can print in a magazine and recognise very easily, the visuals… they shatter the illusion of what the creators are trying to generate. I played through the same level that Grant showed on Call of Duty twice, with all the smoke in the building at the very end. The smoke effects and everything else… just the intensity of the experience. When the visual fidelity is this good, the illusion is not instantly shattered. This is where the other magical components come in.
Cutting the controller cord is part of that magic. It just feels that much more immersive because I don’t feel like I’m tethered. It’s not dragging across the carpet or the coffee table, I’m more in the experience. The audio – Kameo has got a full orchestral score: unfortunately, when I finished the game, the music hadn’t been checked in. The orchestral score for the game actually draws you in the game even more.
Finally, the community is the underplayed part and the part we don’t know how to talk about yet, and as passionately as I believe about it, I think it’s very hard to articulate into words what the community does. If you watched the Perfect Dark presentation last night, you’d say “wow, every single player level I played I can now play co-operatively” and you saw that and could get a sense for it. It’s hard to get that across to 1,100 people who don’t have controllers in their hands… and to Steve’s point about genre busting. I don’t know if that’s genre busting, but that’s what I want to do. And that’s what video games have not really been for me – a real collaborative experience. Where I’ve got a full screen to myself and they’ve got a full screen to themselves.
Most importantly, the game designers said, what’s it gonna take for two people to go through this level co-operatively and design a level around that?
Are all the levels co-operative?
Allard: Yes. You can play every level single player, co-op and co-op online.
How long do you think you have before the PS3 comes out?
Allard: I don’t know! I read what you guys wrote on that! I keep hearing Spring ’06. I wouldn’t believe Spring ’06 considering everything else I’ve heard. It’d be interesting to see what they’re reaction is to our worldwide launch and whether or not they follow suit.
Gerhardt was very eloquent last night in saying “We’re doing the right thing, We’re doing the gutsy thing. Everyone else should be doing the same kind of thing, hint hint!”
I think that was in no small way a ‘hint’ to the other console manufacturers. Whether you’re doing a handheld or anything else, do the same thing as it’s killing the publishers. They’re more at risk, they put more money into it and they can’t capitalise on that on a worldwide level. They’re trying to release games worldwide. They’re trying to do regional content and derivations of content, and when they can’t do it all on the same schedule, it’s a killer for them! It’ll be interesting to see what they do.
What do you think of the PS3?
Allard: They’ve got an interesting lot of claims lined up. What they have claimed versus what they have shown is a very big gap.
In order for them to show all of the things that they have claimed, they’re gonna need an eight hour press conference sometime in the very near future to give everyone confidence that spring ’06 worldwide is gonna happen.
We tried to keep the conference as short as we could. We didn’t show arcade, we didn’t show family settings, a concern a lot of parents have. We’ve done a phenomenal job with letting you control what your child can do on the system to give you more comfort, with the content online and offline. I mean, there’s a lot more to this story, which is why we’ve given you a whole day with us to get as much of the story as you can.
I think Sony’s talked a lot more than they’ve shown and it’s hard to line up their claims of Spring ’06 with how they’re gonna get there. It’s very ambitious and I still can’t buy a 1080p television set in the U.S, let alone two of them, to enjoy that and I don’t have a gigabit Ethernet in my home, so I can’t enjoy that, and they don’t have vent holes in the side of their console yet, so air can flow through those very powerful chips, so it seems like they still have a lot of work to do. They have very nice movies though!
Xbox Live. We hear figures of 2 million users in Europe. Can you break that down for us?
Allard: Not enough!
[b]And the U.S…[/b]
Allard: U.S is certainly the driver and I don’t have a number and I won’t give you a number off the top of my head. But I’ll tell you what some of the challenges have been for us in Europe…
The biggest challenge frankly has been eliminating the credit card. We used that both to establish a billing system we could manage as well as overcoming the different laws and policies of each country, with using voice and that kind of thing.
We’ve actually removed that restriction now and we’ve rebuilt our entire billing infrastructure, we’re working with retail, we’re working with broadband and we’re gonna find new ways to get people on.
We’ve now set up trials as well, where you don’t need to sign up anywhere or scratch any cards. You can now try multiplayer or gold for a weekend. Trials will drive participation.
The third problem we had in Europe was regional community. There’s a critical mass that happens where you don’t have enough people speaking German - ‘it’s a very nice service, but I don’t want to use it in my second language’. And we’re working on better penetration there.
Also, if you go on Xbox.com, you have all the features I demonstrated on the community, on the web. You’ll be able to go online and see what friends are online, leave them messages, see what they’re doing, compare gamerscores and so on…you’ll be able to leave feedback.
You’ll be able to put all those details in your web page. You can put it in your blog. We’re doing all these things to try and increase the community. So as well as removing the credit card restriction, you have an entrée of free trials, the web aspect where you can build the community and connect the dots and get to those people who were afraid of going online. I believe we will overcome that hurdle and get to critical mass, and the different non-English speaking territories and Europe generally and really get the ball rolling.
Europe is very important to us not just in console growth but Live growth as well.
Read More Like This
Comments
marmaduke 10 Oct 2005 18:36
1/13
Now is this actually an interview by Spong's Daniel Boutros or is it by Eurogamer's Kristan Reed?
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61217
Someone isn't crediting their articles properly. Own up now, who is it?
http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=61217
Someone isn't crediting their articles properly. Own up now, who is it?
Sienar 10 Oct 2005 20:49
2/13
Eurogamer: "Eurogamer: Has the launch proved harder than you expected?
J Allard: No, we knew it was going to be really really hard. It's a really hard problem, but, you know, we're stepping up. As Gerhard (Florin, EA Europe chief) said yesterday, it takes guts, but it's the right thing to do, and often the right thing to do takes guts, and some things complicate it. Will it go without a hitch? No. We'll have some logistics issues, it's going to be difficult. We're buying a lot of capacity on planes and on boats and we're going to be co-ordinating a lot. Do I think it'll go flawlessly? I don't, but I think it's the right thing to do, and I think we'll look back on it more convicted [sic] than ever that it was the right thing to do, and we're very committed to it. It's a lot of late nights for a lot of people, and a lot of hard work, and we're going to get some heat. It's never fun to work really really hard and then get heat from the media, from retailers, from the consumer because we didn't have enough of the things or because something wasn't quite as perfect as we’d like it to be in our execution, but the team signed up for it, because it's the right thing to do."
Spong: "Has the launch proved harder than you originally imagined?
J Allard: No, we knew it was going to be really, really hard. It's a really hard problem, but, you know, we're stepping up. As Gerhard (Florin, EA Europe chief) said yesterday, it takes guts, but it's the right thing to do, and often the right thing to do takes guts. Will it go without a hitch? No. We’ll have some logistics issues, it's going to be difficult. We're buying a lot of capacity on planes and on boats and we're going to be co-ordinating a lot. Do I think it'll go flawlessly? I don't, but I think it's the right thing to do, and I think we'll look back on it, more convinced than ever that it was the right thing to do, and we're very committed to it.
It's a lot of late nights for a lot of people, and a lot of hard work, and we're going to get some heat. It's never fun to work really, really hard and then get heat from the media, from retailers, from the consumer because we didn't have enough of the things or because something wasn't quite as perfect as we’d like it to be in our execution, but the team signed up for it, because it's the right thing to do. "
What spong said about the article "We sat down with J Allard at X05 and asked him a few questions. Here’s the complete UK interview transcribed in full; "
In actuallity, it was Kristen Reed of eurogamer, not Daniel Boutros who did the interview. All Boutros did is rearange Reed's article so it may not look like he plagerized it on frist inspection.
Because spong does things like this, they will continue to be considered a second rate gaming page and will never be able to get actual interviews with anyone important.
J Allard: No, we knew it was going to be really really hard. It's a really hard problem, but, you know, we're stepping up. As Gerhard (Florin, EA Europe chief) said yesterday, it takes guts, but it's the right thing to do, and often the right thing to do takes guts, and some things complicate it. Will it go without a hitch? No. We'll have some logistics issues, it's going to be difficult. We're buying a lot of capacity on planes and on boats and we're going to be co-ordinating a lot. Do I think it'll go flawlessly? I don't, but I think it's the right thing to do, and I think we'll look back on it more convicted [sic] than ever that it was the right thing to do, and we're very committed to it. It's a lot of late nights for a lot of people, and a lot of hard work, and we're going to get some heat. It's never fun to work really really hard and then get heat from the media, from retailers, from the consumer because we didn't have enough of the things or because something wasn't quite as perfect as we’d like it to be in our execution, but the team signed up for it, because it's the right thing to do."
Spong: "Has the launch proved harder than you originally imagined?
J Allard: No, we knew it was going to be really, really hard. It's a really hard problem, but, you know, we're stepping up. As Gerhard (Florin, EA Europe chief) said yesterday, it takes guts, but it's the right thing to do, and often the right thing to do takes guts. Will it go without a hitch? No. We’ll have some logistics issues, it's going to be difficult. We're buying a lot of capacity on planes and on boats and we're going to be co-ordinating a lot. Do I think it'll go flawlessly? I don't, but I think it's the right thing to do, and I think we'll look back on it, more convinced than ever that it was the right thing to do, and we're very committed to it.
It's a lot of late nights for a lot of people, and a lot of hard work, and we're going to get some heat. It's never fun to work really, really hard and then get heat from the media, from retailers, from the consumer because we didn't have enough of the things or because something wasn't quite as perfect as we’d like it to be in our execution, but the team signed up for it, because it's the right thing to do. "
What spong said about the article "We sat down with J Allard at X05 and asked him a few questions. Here’s the complete UK interview transcribed in full; "
In actuallity, it was Kristen Reed of eurogamer, not Daniel Boutros who did the interview. All Boutros did is rearange Reed's article so it may not look like he plagerized it on frist inspection.
Because spong does things like this, they will continue to be considered a second rate gaming page and will never be able to get actual interviews with anyone important.
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marmaduke 10 Oct 2005 22:59
3/13
Christ, you sound like a) a massive Eurogamer fanboy and b) someone who knows what he's talking about. This might just be part of the Spong content delievery b******s. Alternatively, you might be right.
Official statement please, kids.
Official statement please, kids.
LUPOS 11 Oct 2005 00:11
4/13
it is very suspect... i havent the slightest either way... but i have my assumptions biased as they may be.
it should be considered however that mr allard speaks to tons of peopel on a daily basis and the number of questions one can ask about the forth comming system is also rather limited. plus the eery similarity in answers is not unreasonable since it was not exactly an exclsuive interview and im sure "j" as paroted (sp?) these same little musings and remarks to more people than i have hair folicls... none the less... official word would be nice.... guys?
______
it should be considered however that mr allard speaks to tons of peopel on a daily basis and the number of questions one can ask about the forth comming system is also rather limited. plus the eery similarity in answers is not unreasonable since it was not exactly an exclsuive interview and im sure "j" as paroted (sp?) these same little musings and remarks to more people than i have hair folicls... none the less... official word would be nice.... guys?
______
TigerUppercut 11 Oct 2005 09:36
5/13
Sienar wrote:
In actuallity, it was Kristen Reed of eurogamer, not Daniel Boutros who did the interview. All Boutros did is rearange Reed's article so it may not look like he plagerized it on frist inspection.
Because spong does things like this, they will continue to be considered a second rate gaming page and will never be able to get actual interviews with anyone important.
1. It was an panel of interviewees. There was someone there from the FT, someone there from the Independent too.
2. You might notice that our piece is twice as long as the Euorgamer piece. The rest of the interview they'll publish in a few days I guess. You cock. If you'd bothered to read the whole thing rather than the first paragraph...
Think I've made my point. As for interviews with anyone important... All of the following were 100% exclusive 1-to-1 interviews:
Shigeru Miyamoto
Saturu Iwata
Peter Molyneux
Peter Moore
J Allard
Etc, etc, etc...
Wow. Having a forum is brilliant.
You should go back to Eurogamer and re-read your half an interview. We'll be fine with the full transcript. While there, wonder who actually asked the questions that got published in the J Allard piece.
You should also avoid SPOnG for a blinding interview with an illusive development studio (Radiant SilverGun anyone) in the coming days...
DoctorDee 11 Oct 2005 09:52
6/13
Sienar wrote:
In actuallity, it was Kristen Reed of eurogamer, not Daniel Boutros who did the interview.
In actuality, you don't have a clue what you are talking about. If we are ripping them off, how do you explain that our interview is twice as long as theirs?
When they publish a second half that is the same as ours, will you go one their forums and accuse them of ripping us off? No - thought not.
You do not post anything constructive to our forums.
In fact, you have only posted twice, both times to pimp Eurogamer.
marmaduke 11 Oct 2005 11:17
7/13
Well, glad that's sorted out.
DeepFraught 11 Oct 2005 12:41
8/13
Sienar wrote:
Because spong does things like this, they will continue to be considered a second rate gaming page and will never be able to get actual interviews with anyone important.
You really have no idea how a panel interview work, do you? Stop making a fool of yourself. Either shut the f**k up or only post when you have something interesting and constructive to contribute.
SPInGSPOnG 11 Oct 2005 12:54
9/13
DeepFraught wrote:
Either shut the f**k up or only post when you have something interesting and constructive to contribute.
Or funny. We likes funny.
In the "ha-ha: belly-laugh way, not in the "sad and pathetic loser with no friends who just might turn up at work any day with an AK47 and put a hole in his supervisers head" sort of way that you're already posting.
DeepFraught 11 Oct 2005 13:25
10/13
Rod Todd wrote:
DeepFraught wrote:
Either shut the f**k up or only post when you have something interesting and constructive to contribute.
Or funny. We likes funny.
In the "ha-ha: belly-laugh way, not in the "sad and pathetic loser with no friends who just might turn up at work any day with an AK47 and put a hole in his supervisers head" sort of way that you're already posting.
Funny is good. True. Park it under "interesting", would you?
SPInGSPOnG 11 Oct 2005 14:27
11/13
DeepFraught wrote:
Funny is good. True. Park it under "interesting", would you?
Now, I can see how I might have been misconstrued here. And if I have, it would be entirely my fault. And I apologise.
While I was quoting you, DeepFraugh, the "sad psycho" part was intended entirely and exclusively for Seinar.
I hope this was clear, but apologise again if it was not.
imnotregret 13 Oct 2005 20:41
12/13
So i suppose you've been keeping an eye on that origenxbox360 site you guys told us about?
fluffstardx 13 Oct 2005 22:59
13/13
I still think the bunnies are funny.
That's about it, really.
That's about it, really.