Interviews// Rare Senior Programmer, Nick Burton

SPOnG: Then on the flipside you've got the success stories, like Mario Galaxy from Nintendo.

Nick Burton: The great one I always quote to people has to be Wii Fit. I would have loved to have been in the initial pitch meeting for that; especially if it hadn't have been Miyamoto.

"So, we've got these scales, right, and you stand on them, and it weighs you, but it's got two scales, so it can detect your balance a bit, and you kind of do callisthenics and Yoga on it."

You can just see some publisher going "Right, you know where the door is." But then, that's sometimes where that true greatness comes from, as we've seen.

Even I was like "Wii Fit... what? Actually, it's quite good, isn't it?" It's so out of left field, but Miyamoto's brilliant at doing that anyway. It's almost their modus operandi now, isn't it? "What weird thing are Nintendo going to do next?"

Then everyone starts speculating, "Oh, it's mind control". They'll probably come up with something that looks like a bunch of flowers and everyone will go, "That's so stupid" then three years later – "That was a genius thing to do!"

SPOnG: We'd forget there was ever a time that we gamed without a bunch of flowers.

Nick Burton: And everyone suddenly sees it as completely normal and natural. But that's what's great about the games industry in general, you just get this mad innovation, which is why I love it!


SPOnG: Would you like to work on the Wii? Obviously that's not likely any time soon with Rare being a Microsoft studio, but does it appeal to you as a programmer?

Nick Burton: I like working with Nintendo – I have done in the past, obviously – I don't necessarily know from a technical point of view whether I'd like to work on the Wii. I worked on the GameCube for a long time...

Time has passed and I still love the 360 (and I'm not saying that because Chris Satchell might be in the room). Just from a programmer's point of view it's a really well thought out machine. It's so easy to programme. Power-wise the PS3, the 360, there's always the endless arguments on that. Realistically, if you're a programmer and you know lots of other programmers in the industry, we all know they're about the same in terms of raw power, but the 360's just really easy to program. So, I'm kind of glad I'm working on it.


SPOnG: Was it a big shift, moving to Microsoft hardware?

Nick Burton: No, everyone always thinks there's going to be this massive shift in hardware (but) as programmers you just get on with it. You've got to expect different architectures; purposed CPUs in the 360s, and it is (different). But those kinds of hard, technical challenges are something that one or two people (who) are the system architecture guys... they do that.

These days it's much more about how you make changes to the game quickly, being very agile and being able to change and react to change very quickly. It's not necessarily about any one technology. I see consoles as a means to an end; the game.

So, yeah. If I was working on the Wii I'd probably be enjoying working on the Wii, probably using the controller and things like that. But, technically, I enjoy what I programme with Rare. We can change. Going from, say, the GameCube to the Xbox 1, everybody thinks it's massively different. It took our shared technology group about a month to actually do it.

It's not what people expect. Perhaps it's a programmer's thing, "Ah, just get on with it." It's exciting sometimes, as well. It's like, "Oooh, new hardware".

The GameCube was powerful, compared to the N64, then you get the Xbox. Then the 360 comes along and it's "How much power?" And I don't mean its current draw from the mains, either (Grins). (I mean) the GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) power.

I had this moment, going back a few years, when we were doing Kameo for the 360 launch, and for a laugh I'd written this particle system. I put a million particles in it to see it grind to a halt, and it was, "How many particles? Oh, it's still going." You look back, and you look at the performance tools and you think, "Of course it is!"

There are these barriers that you put in place yourself where you think, "It shouldn't be able to do that. Let's try it, let's kill it!... Oh my gosh!" You get the rest of the team round and their like "No way!" Then the designers - beard-stroking time - go "Can we do this to it then?"