Loinhead

From Gamesindustry.biz via Kotaku:

Q: Peter Molyneux recently dropped one or two hints to GamesIndustry.biz about the sorts of things we might expect from Lionhead’s next game - will that definitely be published under the MGS banner?
Phil Spencer: Yeah, absolutely.

Q: No Bungie- or Ensemble-style plans there then?
Phil Spencer: Well I’m going to drill in on that a little, but no - no plan for Lionhead. But even the Bungie games that come out as Bungie - the entity they are today - are still MGS games. We look at those as first party games.

So, Lionhead are are currently safe from an Ensemble style closure, but will they part ways with Microsoft, Bungie style, where MS retain a 10% share?

Molyneux doing what, potentially, he does best:

We’ve actually been working on another project now for a while, and obviously it’s ridiculously ambitious, but it’s ridiculously ambitious in a very simple way. It’s a simple and pure idea, and very, very different to anything I’ve done before.

I haven’t said anything about the game to anyone, and neither should I until next year, but I think it’ll surprise people.

It’s certainly different to what you might think Lionhead would do. Or maybe not, actually, thinking about it, but I think we need look at this industry, and think about who our audience is, and that applies to this new game.

Phil Elliot interviews Peter Molyneux for GamesIndustry.biz to talk about the Asian market, sales of Fable 2 there, and about Little Big Planet. This is part one; part two usually follows some days later.

I’ve been lucky to have a couple of successes, and it’ll be interesting to see what people’s feelings are on Fable. I have no idea whether or not the Asian community is going to fall in love with Fable. Obviously I hope they are - there are lots of things in there, lots of hooks in there like the co-op play and the customisation, which seem to be things that Asians enjoy. But we’ll have to see.

GamesIndustry.biz also reported on his presentation at GC Asia:

Although Fable 2 is familiar when you look at it (if you’ve played Fable 1) it has a host of new inventions. It’s got the dog, and co-op play, a dynamic world and free roaming - all of that stuff, I think it’s what makes Fable 2.

These inventions lead to unique experiences, and those unique experiences are what our consumers want. What gamers want is to experience things they’ve never experienced before.

And us as an industry, us as game developers, have to deliver on that promise. We have to deliver games that have never been seen before, because if we don’t do that, we’re going to stop as an industry, and we’re never going to get anywhere.

If you look at the history of Hollywood - Hollywood went through this time when they stopped making cool films, and suddenly they started again. That’s what we’re like, but we can never sit on our hands - there is no single game mechanic which we can take for granted - whether it be mini-maps, or death mechanics, or whatever… we should invent and create things that have never been seen before.

After Microsoft closed its games studio Ensemble Studios, responsible for Age of Empires and Halo Wars, comments have been coming in that internal studios are more expensive to keep than externals.

Microsoft game studios are now just Lionhead and Rare, after Bungie split amicably from Microsoft last year.

In an internal letter, Microft Game Studios’ head Phil Spencer said

I want to emphasize that the overall investment Microsoft is making in videogame development is not diminished, and we will continue to bring in talent to work on titles and franchises where we’ll see the most ROI.

The CEO of Rebellion studios, who have bought several other studios, commented that internal teams, such as Lionhead now, used to be seen to be cheaper than independent teams, such as Lionhead pre-2006 when it was bought by Microsoft.

Lionhead’s future depends in some way on Fable 2’s performance, of course, but in any case, these developments could foreshadow an eventual split between Microsoft and Lionhead. The question is: Bungie- or Ensemble-style?

That’s part two (p1) of Peter Molyneux’s interview with Gamesindustry.biz in four words for you (it’s these time-savers that make all the difference). If you’ve got time for an additional seven: Peter is pleasingly glib about silly questions.

GamesIndustry.biz: You’ve always been outspoken in your beliefs about what games have the potential to offer and where they could go. What’s your view on the question of whether games are an art form?

Peter Molyneux: Of course they are.

Why would you say that is?

Why would you say they weren’t? I’m very glib about that because this is a philosophical question. - Read on »

GamesIndustry.biz interviewed Peter Molyneux (CEO, studio head and chief designer), Mark Webley (director) and Tim Rance (CTO) about the last ten years at Lionhead, who actually started as “Splinter Studios”. Part one of three.

- Read on »

Lionhead is shortlisted for the UK Developer of the Year award of the Golden Joystick Awards 2007, among, well, other UK developers. The award will be presented in London on Friday, 26th of October.

You can vote for them. Do so now.