David Jaffe: '10 Years from Now, One Console'

[Pumpkin Head]

Blow by blow, The 1UP Show, Gamevideos and 1UP present: Twenty Minutes Thirty-One Seconds and Fourteen Frames with David Jaffe.

On a recent visit to SCEA San Diego to see David Jaffe's Calling All Cars for The 1UP Show, after talking about calling all cars, the outspoken developer talked about the game industry, Sony's first party and concerns he has with all three of the platform holders strategies.

1UP: With God of War 2 finishing up on the PS2 and you readying God of War 3 for 2000-eternity...

David Jaffe: Heh, exactly.

1UP: Are you concerned with the perception of an exodus of third parties, you have VF5 going to the 360, potentially there's a bunch of other games going to the 360 as well.

DJ: There's two things. I'd be concerned if I heard that all of those were going to the 360 exclusively, but that's not what you're saying. You're saying there's a business model out there where these games are getting really expensive. A lot of games recently it's cell phone, PC, DS, PSP, if you look at EA they blanket it -- it's everywhere. As a gamer, I kind of miss the 'you can only get it on this system.' There's kind of an excitement that was about that back up until recently. With this new hardware, though, that idea is seems to be going away. Is it really all going to come down to first party now? Or it ultimately going to come to one system? 'Cause 10 years from now there's going to be one system because there's so much more third party software than first party software from any hardware manufacturer. It may not be feasible to make it the war of the first party or the war of the exclusives.

1UP: Are you guys internally worried as developers about the way Sony's handling their third party? You have developers like Activision working on the Tony Hawk game and before the PS3 launch they came out and said 'we don't know that we'll be able to do online because Sony hasn't been cooperative.' If Sony's not cooperating with third party developers, as a first party developer that's gotta be concerning.

DJ: Understandably, as their should be there is a very thick iron curtain between first party and third party. We're not allowed to see what they're working on or anything like that to make sure that there isn't osmosis where Activision would claim that we're using their ideas to make first party games. So this is coming sort of from just a guy who works at Sony and a guy who loves games and reads the message boards. I remember a lot of complaints about the PS2 at the very beginning and people got up to speed and ultimately realized that this is a very exciting platform to work on.

I don't really see any reason why the PS3 isn't going to go down that same road. What was it? The Dreamcast was out when PS3 [he meant PS2 - ed] launched. And everyone was like 'Oh the Dreamcast is a dream and it's so easy, blah blah.' Ultimately, it doesn't matter. It's about the games and about how Sony will support their third party partners as well as their first party partners to get those games out to people. I think ultimately we're going to see a somewhat similar situation there.

1UP: I see what you did there, you just Dreamcast'd the 360.

DJ: Well, wait a minute, I'm open to this, let's have this discussion...

How did the discussion turn out?

http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/8593

[curryking1]

600 dollars is a lot to ask.

Then again, when people see a 1080p movie and a 1080p game, that 600 goes down a lot easier.

I don't feel that Sony has communicated that message well enough.

I completely and wholeheartedly agree. A good watch I would say, thanks for the heads up.

[yoshaw]

ZOMG! I can't stop laughing. Jaffe PWNED 1up's Luke Smith!! Serves him right for sneaking his fanboyism to attack the biggest mouth in the gaming industry.

Great interview! +rep

[Garfunkel]

+rep! He is one of my favorite devs, he is funny and down to earth too, seems like a nice enough bloke.

[masteratt]

Haha, excellent.

The interviewer was really annoying but got his ass handed to him and what a nerd actually pronouncing Virtua Fighter 4 as VF4. Or does every gamer do that? I find it extremely nerdy lol

Big props to Mr Jaffe as always
I am pretty sure he doesn't actually like the X360 though lol

Btw, what's up with the "lol we r gonna make u sick lolol" cuts that 1UP uses? Are they trying to be the MTV of gaming? horrible. I could hardly concentrate on what he was saying because of stupid and unnecessary cuts every second.

[frosty]

I wish I could +rep David Jaffe. Hurry up and make an e-mpire account David!

[woundingchaney]

Dont really care for the guy. Seems to be the ever eager Sony cheerleader and nothing he says translates to anything other than RAH RAH RAH.

Its the equivalent of listening to Bungie.

[kaphwan]

All of 1up's questions are backhanded insults against Sony.

Not professional journalism.

[Garfunkel]

^^^yeah the cuts were very bad, i didn't know if it was them or on my end but it was disturbing.

[gozirah]

Well, what would you have them do? Ask hard hitting questions about the viva pinata? Jaffe does work for Sony, afer all.

Originally Posted by kaphwan063

All of 1up's questions are backhanded insults against Sony.

Not professional journalism.

[woundingchaney]

Originally Posted by gozirah

Well, what would you have them do? Ask hard hitting questions about the viva pinata? Jaffe does work for Sony, afer all.

This is actually a good point. There is much for Sony to attest to after the launch and much that didnt turn out well in the eyes of critics and fans. Should they play patti-cake with the man or ask him definable questions????

If anything I really prefer the comments made by 3rd party devs, publishers than in house talent.

[curryking1]

Originally Posted by woundingchaney

Dont really care for the guy. Seems to be the ever eager Sony cheerleader and nothing he says translates to anything other than RAH RAH RAH.

Its the equivalent of listening to Bungie.

Did you watch it? I never have read or seen any interview with the guy, I didn't even know what he looked like (I first thought Jaffe was the guy with the beard and was wondering why he asked the question first lol!).

I thought this was a great interview though. He did cheerlead a bit during the part where he had to talk 1 good thing and bad thing about Sony and the PS3's directions, and much less slightly during other times (which is understandable being under Sony) but other than that, I thought he made some good and reasonable assessments of gaming today.

Again, my favourite thing he said was that he feels that Sony needs to convey the purpose for spending the 500 or 600 bucks. The consumer must be told and given the incentive and reason to spend it, I don't think Sony has done well to convey the worth of the console either.

[woundingchaney]

Originally Posted by curryking1

Did you watch it? I never have read or seen any interview with the guy, I didn't even know what he looked like. I thought this was a great interview though. He did cheerlead a bit during the part where he had to talk 1 good thing and bad thing about Sony, but other than that, I thought he made some good and reasonable assessments of gaming today.

Im not saying that he isnt talented or that he doenst make good points but most of what I hear him say is Sony utopia. I recognize why this is done and it is a viewpoint but I wouldnt listen to him anymore than I would listen to Gates tell me about the 360 or Bungie tell me how great the next Halo is going to be.

[curryking1]

I agree, I think he is a Sony Utopian kind of guy or whatever and it is on par with Bungie talking about how dual wielding makes Halo 2 better, but regardless of whatever good he said about Sony, I think he made some interesting points.

And I'm sure he said good things about the competition and so on maybe to make him seem agreeable and whatnot.

Whatever way it is, I liked his cost and awareness point about the PS3, hardly pro Sony, and his question about 'will first party titles be the only differing factors between consoles in the future, and will they matter compared to the number of third party titles out there?'

Ignoring all his pro Sony spew, fake-or-not competition praise and whatever other conniving things he may have done, he made 2 great analyzes there. One of them actually being quite unpro Sony.

[woundingchaney]

I dont know man. Its quite apparent that Sony needs to make 500 to 600 USD reasonable, I dont see as to how he couldnt recognize that. Most everything I have heard from the guy is Sony is cool, Sony lets me do what I want, Sony supports everything I like, Sony provides power for devs to eventually catch up to regardless how difficult it is, I like to make 10 or 20 dollar games, Sony makes it worth it to produce a title on their console, we are doing neat things on the PS3,Sony has the most experience pleasing gamers, so on and so on.

[Pistolero]

Smart answers for an enjoyable interview ! Cool Jaffe !

[Pistolero]

Originally Posted by woundingchaney

I dont know man. Its quite apparent that Sony needs to make 500 to 600 USD reasonable, I dont see as to how he couldnt recognize that. Most everything I have heard from the guy is Sony is cool, Sony lets me do what I want, Sony supports everything I like, Sony provides power for devs to eventually catch up to regardless how difficult it is, I like to make 10 or 20 dollar games, Sony makes it worth it to produce a title on their console, we are doing neat things on the PS3,Sony has the most experience pleasing gamers, so on and so on.

Well, maybe he was not lying !

[yoshaw]

Wounding,

The guy is a hard hitting industry pioneer. Kojima finds him worthy enough to ask if he wants to work with him someday. If he says anything about Sony it's because its coming straight from his heart. Same goes for everything he says out loud whenever it is he's asked anything. The guy simply doesn't hold back. Sorry but you aligning him with the likes of Gates or other trumpet blowers is rather not really fitting to Jaffe IMO. But we all have em, you have it too, them opinions. So cheers buddy

[Garfunkel]

Originally Posted by woundingchaney

I dont know man. Its quite apparent that Sony needs to make 500 to 600 USD reasonable, I dont see as to how he couldnt recognize that. Most everything I have heard from the guy is Sony is cool, Sony lets me do what I want, Sony supports everything I like, Sony provides power for devs to eventually catch up to regardless how difficult it is, I like to make 10 or 20 dollar games, Sony makes it worth it to produce a title on their console, we are doing neat things on the PS3,Sony has the most experience pleasing gamers, so on and so on.

Except for the last one, i feel that that is exactly what he thinks, maybe Sony does support everything he likes, maybe he does like cheap games, maybe sony does let him do what he want.

The thing is, he would not be making a first party game exclusive for the ps3 if he didn't feel Sony supported him on his game development.

[masteratt]

He clearly favours Sony, that's not to say he is a Sony puppet.

He gave reasonable and very likely to be true reasons as to why he 'loves' Sony so much and as I always said Sony somehow manages to create this positive chemistry with many developers.
Don't hate Sony for being good.

This was definitely a genuine, non-PR bullshit interview. This guy is always like that.