Yu interview at gamespot

<a target="_blank" href=http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2854286,00.html
>http://gamespot.com/gamespot/stories/news/0,10870,2854286,00.html
</a>

 

This has got to be one of the most boring interviews I've ever read. Is it just me or do Japanese developers often answer questions evasively and with as little detail as they can?

 

Bingo! (Common for Yu Suzuki particularly though)

Though Itagaki seems to be quite different...

 

I actually like the way Yu Suzuki answers the questions. Not very informative, true, but he's very circumspect in the way he responds and manages expectations nicely. From a player's standpoint, he doesn't give a lot of info, but from a business standpoint, he's respecting all the confidentiality that he's been entrusted with, and would sooner deliver a stellar product with little hype than the other way around.

Contrast this with human hype machines John "Delay-katana" Romero or Dave "Tribes 2: Bugfixes on an epic scale" Georgeson, both of whom ran their companies into the ground, and I think I like Y.S' approach better.

 

Still, the interview contains one really, really important point I think a few developers should take into heart:
<blockquote><font class="small">In reply to:</font><hr>

As far as games go, if it's fun, it's fine. The important thing to focus on is making sure that the game is interactive. If you keep the player from interacting for too long, it's not so good. If the movies in a game are too long, then you start to get bored after the first time that you see it. So games with longer movies have less replay value.

<hr></blockquote>
Sakaguchi? Takahashi? You guys listening?

 

The thing that bothers me is his comments about Shenmue being "too big." I hope he was joking because I love the series and I'd give a kidney to have part 3 right now. I don't wanna see them cut corners or just cut the rest of the series completely. I'd be crushed.

 

Aye...but u forgot abt Kojima~

 

I agree/versus/images/icons/smile.gif

...Romero... WHO'S THE BITCH NOW, ROMERO?! Anyways... myself and another friend got so annoyed of the whole Romero hype during the years prior to Daikatana.... Maybe we were just too Carmack-biased? But reading about Ion Storm was always annoying for us.... I thought they were talking about a health spa as opposed to a development team.

And don't worry, Itagaki paved the way for VF.Net.... I'm assuming he meant he invented the barcode scanner? jk

-Chanchai

 

Yeah that hurt, I hope Yu was just joking about Shenmue being too big. I'd hate to see it cut short (like El Dorado Gate) or otherwise be unfinished. But at least Mue III should still be in development. *starts drooling*