Do you worry about it being too early in the 3D cycle to present Killzone 3 in 3D? Do you worry about the consumer adoption rate for the 3DTVs, the glasses, and stuff like that? And if you do worry about it, how do you address those concerns?
No I don’t. I don’t worry about it because I know we have a great experience in 3D for the people that will be the early adopters who’ll buy a 3D set. I think it’s going to be a great experience for them. And I fully stand behind what we’re creating. But, you’re right in saying that it is early and it will not be the majority of people who will have the 3D sets available. So we’ve taken a very simple approach, which is to let the user switch it on and off. Switch it on when available and when desirable. And switch if off, or keep it off, if he doesn’t have a 3D set, or simply wants to play it in 2D. I like these kind of things as an option. That’s why I don’t think it should be threatening or I don’t think it can disappoint anyone. Because if you don’t like it, don’t switch it on. It’s that simple.
The interesting thing is for me, that having played it in 3D, I kind of don’t want to experience it in any other way. I only want to play it in 3D. So I’m looking at my TV, which is a decent TV. It’s a Sony Bravia from four years ago, but it’s kind of looking like the old car in the garage that you want to upgrade. But that is a good point that by simple having a toggle on the option that you can pretty much insulate yourself against any kind of risks with regard to early adopters not wanting the game or something like that. I guess, one more quick question about looking forward, and how you see Sony’s position moving forward.
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What do you feel is their biggest advantage as a platform holder at this point, as a console maker, that maybe a Nintendo or a Microsoft doesn’t have? I realize you maybe biased, but maybe from as objective a perspective as you can manage?
I think there are couple. If it sounds biased, then that’s what it is. I don’t think it is. I think what Sony is, more than any other company, is a truly global and very eclectic company that really truly supports all styles of games. I think the Worldwide Studio Group–which, after we sold the company to Sony, we’re now formally part of–has got development studios, like the Ico team and the Gran Turismo team in Japan, who bring some very specific Japanese experiences.
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Ico is actually a great example of that kind of support. And even when that game didn’t sell well, the studio was still given a greenlight to make Shadow of the Colossus. Then we do very, very specific US stuff, like SOCOM. We have all those great teams in the States like Naughty Dog on the west coast. We have the Media Molecule and Evolution studios in London, and with us at Guerrilla, there’s a strong European presence, too. So I think it’s probably the most international, and therefore, probably the most complete chain of development that you’re going to find. That kind of comes back to what we started off talking about. Sony, being a Japanese consumer electronics company, the company has a very long-term vision and really takes a direction and follows that direction that it believes in.
It’s a wider technology and media company. So you can expect from the company going forward to fully leverage the other parts of the business: music, film, consumer electronics. There’s so many aspects to the business, that there really are a lot of opportunities to integrate that. So I think those two elements combined leave Playstation in a great position for the future.
Your answer just reminded me of one question I wanted to ask earlier, which is relevant to what you just said. You mentioned how the partnership with Sony early on, right after you guys formed Guerrilla, had enabled you to bring in a lot of expatriate talent, like talent from outside of the Netherlands. That multi-national vibe shows ups in the Killzone games a little bit. The characters you play are very international. They’re ethically diverse. Do you feel like that is an important aspect to the games that you guys make at Guerrilla? Would the games be more homogeneous if you weren’t able to access the larger global community of talent?
I think we are able, when desirable, to get rid of very local idiosyncrasies and local clichés. So we are aware of what is very English and what is very American and what is very Japanese. And we can kind of choose to iron out these differences because we’re aware of them or we can choose to accentuate them where possible. So for instance, if you take the accents of the Helghast versus the ISA, the good guys and the bad guys in our game franchise. You’ll notice very specific accents where one faction is more UK-based and the other is more U.S., more American English. We take that into consideration when we do our casting. But I think that’s just one of the examples of what you were referring to.