Peter Moore on Mistwalker\'s RPGs

Hironobu Sakaguchi is on board for two Xbox 2 RPGs!

February 24, 2005 - In an interview with Microsoft corporate VP of worldwide marketing and publishing, Peter Moore (you know, the guy with the Halo 2 date on his bicep?), the smooth-talking Englishman told IGN the first time he met with former Square President Hironobu Sakaguchi was in Hawaii while on vacation.

"We first met in April in 2004 at Sakaguchi-san\'s house on Maui," said Moore in a phone interview with IGN Xbox today, after Microsoft announced its plans to publish Sakaguchi\'s two new next-gen RPGs. "I was on vacation and we met at his house in a very pleasurable manner, and over the course of three hours we discussed where we thought next-generation games might go, what they might be. That meeting led to 10 months of meetings, and we recently cemented the idea over a very expensive bottle of sake, which was so good, it shouldn\'t have even been drunk."

The creation of Mistwalker Studios and the two RPGs sees the former producer, director, and Square USA president, Sakaguchi, returning to his role as a producer and director, areas he had great success in prior to the poorly received Final Fantasy: Spirits Within while at Square. Moore expanded on what Sakaguchi\'s role is on the games.

"Right now, Sakaguchi-san is outlining the storyline, building the characters, and spending the time to flesh out the games. With RPGs, the early priorities are to develop the worlds, the storyline, and the characters first. The mechanics will come together soon. I suspect Sakaguchi will talk about this soon. We might be able to talk with him at E3. There\'s a good possibility of that."

Having said that, Microsoft\'s announcement wasn\'t exactly filled with hard details. But the announcement\'s impact is significant and, more importantly, timely, with Microsoft having acknowledged that GDC won\'t be the showcase for its next-generation announcement. Still, Moore wouldn\'t place a time or a date on the release of these games.

"The details regarding when the games come out are yet to be determined," Moore explained. "You and I both know that the developers in the RPG genre, more than any other genre, could be creating games for more than 15 years and still argue that they\'re not done." (Apparently, Moore and Microsoft are still quietly reeling a tad from their work with Peter Molyneux on the four-year development cycle of Fable).

"I\'m not comfortable talking about timelines, names, and details yet, but going forward we\'ll have more. But I can say that the development teams will continue to expand as the game gets under way. The quality and magnitude of such an RPG requires more than 30 guys working in a basement. Those days are over. I\'d say there will be in excess of 100 strong on each team as the games are in concurrent development."

Asked whether this is the first step in Microsoft\'s push to for a new approach to the worldwide market, specifically the Japanese market for Xbox 2, Moore said, "I think this you could say this is the first step for Microsoft as it begins partnering with important Japanese developers and publishers. Japan is the cradle of the game industry and the home of very creative and innovative minds, and it\'s vital to see the Xbox as a viable competitor in that area. The Japanese market is a very large priority for us for both first-party development and third-party developers and publishers. It\'s a main priority for me in the next 12-18 months to ensure Japanese developers are our partners. Microsoft is making very serious moves that will have global repercussions over a long period of time; this is an investment that will pay off in the future, and will be a platform-driving set of games for our next-generation system."

Asked if Microsoft has struck a deal to publish Square games in the future, Moore swerved the hardball. "I think this is the first step in our campaign as we begin to partner with more Japanese teams. Square is a tremendous publisher, and anything they do is sure to have a huge impact on whatever system they create games for. We would be delighted to partner with Square, and we have the utmost regard for them. Hopefully we will have more to say about a relationship with them in the future."

Although it seems unusual, especially now at the beginning of spring 2005, until today Microsoft had yet to formally acknowledge the existence of its next-generation platform, the supposed "Xbox 360." This announcement lends more credence to what is clearly the worst kept secret in the videogame world, even though Moore side-stepped saying anything directly about Xbox 360. "What we\'re acknowledging today is that there will be games for the next-generation of hardware, whenever it will come," Moore explained.

IGN Interview

Me thinks this won\'t do much to sway the Japanese on buying Xbox 2, however it will make some JRPG fans else where quite happy.  (Like Me!!!!)

Final Fantasy Maven Moves to Next Gen Xbox
Posted by Frankie at 2/24/2005 2:53 PM
Gaming legend Hironobu Sakaguchi (responsible for a few games you may have heard of called Final Fantasy) has announced that his Mistwalker Game Studio will create and develop role-playing games exclusively for what\'s finally been revealed as "the next-generation Xbox video game platform." Sounds awesome! Wonder if Bungie will make anything for it?
Mr. Sakaguchi\'s company has committed to creating two exclusive RPG titles to be published by Microsoft Game Studios.

>>>Link<<<

Is Mistwalker exclusive to Xbox 2 or is it just the two RPGs?  Probably just the two RPGs...

Sakaguchi interview...

Q: So what drove you to break your long silence and finally start making big RPGs again?

Sakaguchi: The truth is that as of last spring I\'d gone two and a half years without any direct, day-to-day involvement with content development. I spent most of my time watching movies and reading books. But after two and a half years of that lifestyle an impulse to make something arose within me.

Q: You\'ve established your own company, Mistwalker...

Sakaguchi: Game development teams and budgets are getting bigger. Relying on game development to raise the money to pay all those people can lock you into a very bad cycle, where you\'re just making things to somehow pay down those costs. But if you can\'t break away from that and make something new, I didn\'t think there was any point in making games at all. I established Mistwalker to try a style of work that wouldn\'t make us so dependent on development.

Q: Was it the next-generation Xbox console that led you to work with Microsoft Game Studios (MGS)?

Sakaguchi: Broadly speaking that\'s certainly true, I definitely wanted a limitless world where I could cram in everything I wanted to do. I think next-generation consoles are past the threshold of being able to do that. It\'s like, everything I wanted to express could fit in this box called the game machine, so I could send it out. While groping for a way to get back into making games I\'d sometimes ask outside creators if they\'d be interested in working together, and thanks to the good response I came to think we could do two RPGs. Then I got a talk from Mr. Maruyama (Xbox business director Yoshihiro Maruyama) a friend I\'d worked with before. Hiroshi Kawai (game development director) who\'d worked with me on development (of FF7 and FF9) was also at MGS, and since we understood each other\'s abilities I felt things would go smoothly this way. So it wasn\'t so much that I chose the hardware myself, I was led to the next-generation Xbox by personal connections.

Q: What\'s your role on these two games? Also, what kind of games will they be?

Sakaguchi: Basically, I\'m the producer, and I\'m also writing a lot of the scenarios, including game system design. One of them goes the realistic route. It will have stylish visuals - this is what I\'ve always been aiming for - it will be a game that gives you the pleasant sensation of walking among amazing visuals. The story won\'t be the typical coming-of-age RPG story, the main character is, if anything, knowledgeable and experienced. But I\'d like to try and show how even that kind of person can be moved to laugh by trivial things, or moved to cry by everyday things. I\'m going for a deeper style that shows a bit of psychological depth. For the other game, I want to make an RPG with deformed characters who move with lots of energy. The main character is someone who never gives up, no matter what hardships he (/she?) undergoes, he grits his teeth and keeps on going.

Q: You have a strong image as a storyteller. Are there any particular rules of thumb or reflections on RPGs that you\'re using to guide you?

Sakaguchi: Right, well, with each new generation of games my thoughts have changed, so... At the moment, I feel that the sensation of walking among amazing visuals - that\'s already been done. But however pretty a game\'s graphics may be, if they can\'t be touched they\'re just decorations in the end. So I\'m thinking I want to aim for a game world with lots of things you can seamlessly interact with in various ways, for the sense of a world where everything can be touched. Also, as I said before I want to get away from coming-of-age stories, and create comical or tragic scenes unlike any seen in games before. I\'m trying to make something that will feel fresh, and explores the possibilities of interactivity.

Q: Finally, please say something to the game fans eagerly awaiting your works.

Sakaguchi: The users have appreciated what I myself found fun, they\'ve been tuned in to my wavelength and that\'s made me very happy and very grateful. So when making games, I never forget the minimal requirement to satisfy the users who spend their money to buy them. I believe in the fun these games will deliver, so please look forward to them.

>>>link<<<

peter isnt in the cloest yet?