Much like our past World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King preview. In this recent World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King video interview with Blizzard’s Designer J. Kaplan and Producer J. Allen Brack, the two talk for 10 minutes about scroll inscription creating and what else World of Warcraft’s upcoming expansion has to offer.

Click on the bottom-right corner arrow to view it fullscreen.

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A recent interview by Jeremy Parish and Brandon Sheffield with the Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (WiiWare) lead programmer Fumiaki Shiraishi and producer Toshihiro Tsuchida has revealed why there are next to no Square Enix games on the Wii Virtual Console, it’s because Square-Enix can ask more money for remakes.

Question: Do you foresee Square Enix doing more in the downloadable space for the other consoles, or will it just be WiiWare for now?
Toshihiro Tsuchida answers: We’re definitely looking into all the other download mediums.

Question: You mentioned in your speech that you initially saw the Virtual Console as the main competition for WiiWare. To date, Square Enix hasn’t really participated too much in the Virtual Console. I think you have a few games available for the system. Is that something you’re looking more into, or something you’ve tried to do and Nintendo has been hands-off with it?
Toshihiro Tsuchida answers: We don’t think the games and the IP that we have have lost value yet, so we haven’t decided if releasing them on Virtual Console is the best idea.

Question: So you feel that releasing older games for the Virtual Console suggests that they’re not as valuable anymore?
Toshihiro Tsuchida answers: It’s a matter of the package — which is downloading. You look at a game, and you have to decide whether it will be better to be sold in a retail store, or if it will be better for download. We’re making that decision carefully for each of the games that we have. It comes down to the games that we think we could make a good remake of haven’t been on Virtual Console yet.

Question: It’s interesting, because the one Square Enix game that has been on the Virtual Console is ActRaiser. This game reminds me a lot of the sim elements of ActRaiser. I don’t know if that means anything, but I am kind of curious about how this became a Final Fantasy game instead of an ActRaiser sequel, because it didn’t originally start out as a Final Fantasy.
Fumiaki Shiraishi answers: I’d like to make an ActRaiser sequel. That would be kind of fun.

Read the full interview at Gamasutra.

I wonder what this means for our chances of seeing the Square-developer SNES game Super Mario RPG on the Wii Virtual Console any time soon? They make it sound like it could be years until people are fed up with Final Fantasy remake after remake before they make all their RPG’s downloadable. Well, if anything, those Super Mario RPG DS remake rumors might come true.

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The latest edition of Iwata Asks on the official Nintendo Wii website talks about the development of Link’s Crossbow Training, with a couple of very interesting tidbits about The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time beta being a First-Person Shooter concept, some of which you can still see when you zoom in in the game when using weapons like the bow and slingshot. Here are some choice quotes:

Iwata: (laughs) For now, rather than hearing too much about the details of the game, I’d like to ask you what sort of image you had in mind when creating Link’s Crossbow Training.

Miyamoto: I see. Well, where should I start? I’ve always been into first person shooter3 (FPS) style games, 3D games in which you can walk around freely and see things from your own point of view.

Iwata: And why do you like those games?

Miyamoto: […] At first when we were developing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, I even proposed using a first-person perspective.

Iwata: Ocarina of Time from a first-person perspective!?

Miyamoto: I thought that might surprise you! (laughs) I thought that the FPS system would be the best way of enabling players to take in the vast terrain of the Hyrule Field. Besides, by not having the player’s character on the screen, we can spend more time and machine power on creating enemies and the environments.

Iwata: During the Nintendo 64 era you had to keep hardware limitations in mind, didn’t you?

Miyamoto: Well, although I had originally planned to make a game with a first-person perspective, the idea of having a child Link in the game was born, and then it became necessary for the hero to be seen on the screen.

Iwata: I see. So, if the hero isn’t visible on screen, it’s really hard to tell the difference between adult Link and the child Link, right?

Miyamoto: That, and also the fact that it’s a total waste not to have Link visible on screen when he is so cool looking! (laughs) So, we decided to have the hero visible in Ocarina of Time, but I had always thought that FPS games which you could operate from your own perspective were really interesting, so I was proactively supporting such projects like the 007 GoldenEye game.
Read more…

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In a recent interview Sony Computer Entertainment President Kaz Hirai was asked about the PlayStation 4 and future Sony hardware always being planned / developed far ahead and how he feels about always thinking for what comes next despite Sony’s planned ten-year life cycle for the PlayStation 3. While it may seem obvious that if the PS3 sells well, there will be a PS4, it’s an interesting behind-the-scenes view.

Mr. Hirai answered: “Well I think in any given moment, you need to think both short-term - so, what are we doing next fiscal year, how do we grow the current business - but at the same time, you also need to look four or five years out as well. To say, OK, what is the consumer wanting to do in interactive entertainment five years from now, what can we as a platform holder propose, if you will, to the consumers, to say maybe we should so this or that, and make sure that we keep the consumers engaged, and really also make sure that we are leading the market as opposed to following it. So discussions are happening all the time, about both our short term plans - what are we doing this fiscal year, next fiscal year - as well as, what is the world going to look like, what is the landscape going to look like five years from now, or ten years from now.”

This last sentence would be referring to the PlayStation 4 planning. So the Kikizo interviewer asked what happens with the PlayStation brand in this rapidly progressing technology landscape.

Mr. Hirai answered: “I think so, I think so. But at the same time, I think we have proven with two consoles already that when you say it’s a ten-year lifecycle, it’s a ten-year lifecycle. And we have the luxury I think of being able to keep that long lifecycle going, which means that we don’t need to be talking about our next-generation platform, because again we have a very stable [current] platform. And we certainly don’t want to confuse the consumers once again, by talking about something that may or may not happen five years from now. And that’s something we’re talking about and discussing up here [taps his head] in the company, but it’s not something we talk about openly, again for fear of confusing the consumers. And quite honestly, I think the PlayStation 3, we’ve repositioned it, and it’s got quite a long way to go. I mean we’re just starting here.”

I’m glad there are professional interviewers out there, I’d be asking questions like whether or not the PS4 will have the Spider-Man font as well. I mean, aren’t you curious?

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In this latest StarCraft II video interview Blizzard Lead Producer Chris Sigaty discusses the long awaited RTS. Take a look at the latest build of the PC game.

Click on the bottom-right corner arrow to view it fullscreen.

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The third-person action game Prototype was originally planned to appear on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in October 2008, but the release has now been delayed into 2009.

To quote a company spokesperson: “Sierra Entertainment and Radical Entertainment have made the decision to shift Prototype to launch in 2009. Since its announcement, Prototype has been regarded by many as groundbreaking and taking the open-world genre in new directions, and in the simplest explanation possible, we need more time to deliver the game the team initially set out to create.”

IGN asked “What does this delay mean for multiplayer?” referring to the cut-out of multiplayer due to time constraints. The answer was: “As we’ve stated previously, Prototype’s multiplayer development was never ‘off the table’ but rather under evaluation and on hold. Now, with the updated 2009 timing, Prototype multiplayer is still on the table for evaluation, and further details will be revealed down the line.”

Back in January GameSpot Australia interviewed Radical about Prototype’s gameplay, memory story, and co-op!

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The Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) recently paid developer BioWare Studios a visit to report on their latest RPG, Sonic Chronicles: The Dark Brotherhood, on the Nintendo DS.

Sonic Chronicles’ associate producer Dorian Kieken was interviewed in French and showed off some gameplay, animation, art and other game-related things created by the development team. BioWare’s Chris Priestly says “It is your first ‘behind the scenes’ look at Sonic and a hint at some of the gameplay you’ll experience.”

Watch the first Sonic Chronicles gameplay 2:18 minutes into the video interview.

Too bad the Mario Kart 64 music (they were probably playing it on the Wii Virtual Console) overlaps with the gameplay footage audio.

Via BioWare & Kokatu, video by Nintendoeverything

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The Too Human world premiere on G4 TV shows loads of new gameplay mechanics in the video interview with the developers at Silicon Knights that gave them all access. The Xbox 360-exclusive still hasn’t received a release date outside of a vague “2008″, but with the hype starting to build it might be coming out in the next three (to six) months.

Up in the first video is Silicon Knights President Denis Dyack talking about the game’s story basis on Norse mythology.

The video interview continues and shows the diverse combat. It’s interesting to hear how the combat gameplay resembles Geometry War’s controls with dual-analog stick wielding. Read more…

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Sierra Entertainment announced The Legend of Spyro 3: Dawn of the Dragon, the third chapter in the popular Legend of Spyro trilogy. Developed by Etranges Libellules, the platform game will be released this fall for the Xbox 360, PS3, Wii, PS2 and DS. The Nintendo DS version is currently being developed by Tantalus Interactive. Vivendi Games Mobile is also making a version of the game for mobile phones throughout Europe and North America.

Reprising their roles as the characters of Spyro and his mentor Ignitus, are two popular Hollywood leading men, Elijah Wood (Frodo Baggins in The Lord of the Rings trilogy) and Gary Oldman (Sirius Black from the Harry Potter films). Joining the Spyro roster this year are Christina Ricci, Blair Underwood, Mark Hamill (yes, Luke Skywalker) and Wayne Brady, rounding out an all-star voice cast.

In the final chapter of the trilogy, players find Sypro teaming up with an unlikely ally - Cynder, his former enemy, to face his most challenging mission to date. As the Dark Master’s (voiced by Mark Hamill) evil envelopes the world like a plague, Spyro must fulfill his destiny and unlock the true power of the purple dragon within him to stop the Dark Master in his tracks.

The game introduces two never before seen elements into the Spyro universe: Spyro can now fly at any time and players can drop-in/drop-out with the new local cooperative feature. The co-op feature allows players to have the option of completing the game as either Spyro or Cynder, giving them more freedom to explore Spyro’s world in completely new ways.

Spyro’s 10 year anniversary comes with a new game containing new features and unlikely companions. Find out more about it in this video interview with, Sierra’s producer on the game, Chris Wilson.

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Warning: this new Protoype gameplay makes Grand Theft Auto 4’s gameplay look “tame”, so be warned for bloody killings. Of course the lead character Alex Mercer does this to survive while he attempts to unravel who or what he is, but it’s insanely violent since the game has “no moral code”.

This is one of those open-world sandbox games action game fans can’t wait to explore. If after the new footage lined up below, you feel like playing it right away, then I’m sorry to say you’ll have to wait for its release on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in America in October and a winter 2008 release in Europe.

Fight a 3-way war in the first title to combine vampires, zombies, and fast-paced free running (parkour).

Discover how this anti-hero is going to tear up New York City in this Sierra Gamers’ Day 08 developer interview. Read more…

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