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- 11 Aug 2006
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We were just talking about the PS3 build of Stranglehold. That was delayed a bit, right?
Mike Bilder: Yeah, a little bit.
Why did that come about?
MB: Just, technical difficulties in development, but it has a number of people dedicated to it in Chicago, and they're working hard, and I think we're going to overcome them pretty quickly.
Do you really think that it's going to be the same level as the 360? Or better? What is your take on that?
MB: I think it's going to be the same. And that's part of the reason why we're delaying it, is that we want to ensure that the quality is the same on all platforms.
The 360 was the lead SKU, right?
MB: 360 and PC, actually, were simultaneously the lead SKU.
Do you think that's part of the reason why it's been somewhat difficult? Because I've heard that if you go from PS3 to 360, if you have PS3 as the lead SKU, you have compartmentalized stuff and you're bringing it into a larger playing field. Whereas with 360 or PC as the lead, you're taking something big and breaking it into chunks.
MB: Sure. You know, it's really a tough thing to say. Hindsight's always 20/20, but we've kept all of the builds in a similar development state all along. What we found, though, when we tried to get some of it game-ready and fitting on the disc and fitting in memory, in the end it was an easier endeavor on two of the SKUs and it was a more difficult endeavor on one of them. Just, to be honest, the hardware differences in memory and processor on the PS3 vs. traditional PC and 360, it makes it a challenge, and it's representative. Everybody's having a challenge in the industry right now.
It's pretty ubiquitous, yeah. What do you think you could have done differently from the start, to alleviate that stuff? Because you said, hindsight...
MB: I think a lot of people and a lot of focus as far as games that we have internally that are going to be multi-SKU are trying to put the PS3 out in front now, make that your lead SKU. And in the same way I think a lot of people put the PS2 as their lead SKU in the last hardware generation, and then Xbox came after.
The difficulty you run into there, at least in the last generation, was that the Xbox was considerably more powerful than the PS2, and you found that people didn't always take advantage of the hardware. Whereas with the PS3 and the 360, it's certainly more of a level playing field, so I don't think it's necessarily a negative to put the PS3 first. But it does help mitigate some of that risk in framerate, memory, technology, just the hardware differences.
Does it concern you at all in terms of number of consoles sold on the PS3 side? Or, since it's multi-SKU, it doesn't matter?
MB: I don't know that that's necessarily an answer that I can give you. There are a number of other people in the company that are always looking at the economics and the marketplace, and the install base and whatnot. Just from a PD standpoint we obviously want to sell as many units as we can on as many platforms, so we always try to optimize for those variables, right?
Yeah. Midway seems to have recently gone really full-force with the original IP stuff, which not a lot of other publishers are doing. Do you think that's going to... I don't want to say "turn things around for you", but is that going to bring you guys to the fore?
MB: Yeah, I think that's certainly part of our strategy right now. And I don't know that it's necessarily a hidden part of our strategy; it's out in the open, we're betting a lot on a lot of new IP, but traditionally what we've seen are companies that do become dominant during a certain hardware transition, meaning like PS1 to PS2, or even now, PS2 to PS3 and Xbox, Xbox 360 and so on and so forth, and it's people that really establish new key franchises.
So we are betting heavy on new IP, we are trying not to just rest on laurels and become a sequel house. And really, Stranglehold is one of our first endeavors there and we're thrilled with the way it's turned out. So we want that to become a competitive advantage for ourselves, for sure.
In a way, you've almost started a little later, though. I don't mean in terms of the game's development cycle, but in terms of releasing games to the market. What is the logic behind waiting to release your original stuff?
MB: I think we've had a mantra of "fewer, bigger, better", and just taking the time to make our games hit a quality level, instead of trying to crank out ten games that are B-quality, let's crank out five games that are A-quality.
So we don't want to rush things to market, we want to take time and do things right, and invent new technology, invent new gameplay mechanics, and again, I think Stranglehold is a good example of that with the massive destructibility and some of the new elements of gameplay you haven't traditionally seen in action games or first person shooter games, and it's taken time to develop that technology. It's taken time to develop that expertise internally.
So instead of rush something to market, we'd rather noodle on it and get it right, get it to 100 percent. So I think that's why we might be a little bit lagging from launch titles of when the systems initially came out, but at the same time it gives us an opportunity to capitalize on a bigger installed base. Heck of a lot more 360s out there then there were that Christmas they came out, and same thing with the PS3s, this holiday as opposed to last holiday.
Und damit beweißt es wieder, dass die nächsten Multieentwicklungen die PS3 als lead SKU haben werden^^
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1998/getting_hard_boiled_midway_.php?page=1

