21st July 2005, 4:04 PM
Nintendo Power's interview with Sega's Simon Jeffrey
Quote:NP: Some of the beloved Sega franchises such as Panzer Dragoon and Shinobi haven’t done as well as they deserved on other consoles. With the success of Sonic on GameCube, why not bring some more of the classic franchises to the GameCube, or moving forward, Revolution?
SJ: I think that’s something that we’re absolutely looking at, to be honest. I think we’re really looking at which of our classic IPs are appropriate for different platforms. We’re very interested in Revolution at the moment. We obviously haven’t made any announcements, but we, like other people, are talking with Nintendo about what Revolution will be, about potential opportunities on Revolution. With regard to GameCube itself . . . it’s interesting how something like Panzer Dragoon Orta would have done on GameCube if it had come out on that versus Xbox. That’s an interesting scenario. I’m not sure what would have happened there. We’re always really looking at what we can do that best exploits for us the classic IPs that we’ve got for a particular market. A GameCube player, like you say, is very, very different from an Xbox player.
Quote:NP: Do you think that those rising costs might lead to even more cross-platform games, and if Nintendo decides to do something radically different with Revolution, is that going to potentially discourage third parties from supporting the platform? Or do you think it might be attractive in terms of trying something different?
SJ: A bit of both, probably. I think it depends how Nintendo rolls out its third-party relations. We’re very excited about the prospects of Revolution, because, like we were talking about earlier, the Nintendo platforms have been great for Sonic and the classic franchises. We think Revolution can absolutely be the same. But I think you’re absolutely right. If Nintendo does choose a different model than Sony and Microsoft, then it might be very difficult for some third parties to adopt this three-pronged, multi-platform approach.
NP: This is kind of a wild idea, but it could be very cool. At E3, Nintendo announced that the Revolution would have the capability to download NES, SNES and N64 games. Would it be at all feasible, do you think, to partner with Nintendo and perhaps add the Sega Genesis to that list?
SJ: That’s a pretty wild idea. (Laughs.) You should talk to Nintendo about that.