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| Mr. Sam Houser, president of Rockstar Games. |
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| Midnight Club is a very fun, funky racing game to play on PS2...
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| ...As is its offroad racing cousin, Smuggler's Run, which boasts huge landscapes and great car physics.
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| "What will truly win this next generation war is a combination of branding and content." -- Sam Houser, Rockstar Games
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Rockstar Envisions the Future
President Sam Houser discusses the upcoming next-gen wars, PS2 Duke Nukem, GTA, and Austin Powers.
November 1, 2000
In the wake of the PlayStation 2's massive attack on America last
week, the dust has finally settled a little bit. Not one company has
lost, but instead many have won -- they have earned new market
perceptions, perhaps created better games, or have started to see some
real returns on their two-year projects. Take-Two's subsidiary Rockstar
has seen all of the above, thanks to its well received action-based
racing games Smuggler's Run and Midnight Club: Street Racing.
IGNPS2 spoke with Rockstar's President Sam Houser today to find out what
is the next step for the company that has been trying hard for about
two years to invent a music-drenched gamehouse that blends the wild
abandon of rock 'n' roll with the nerdy, high tech game arena. Has it
landed on its belly, or is Rockstar finally beginning to get the respect
its worked so hard for? Clearly, Sam Houser thinks Rockstar arrived a
long time ago, but its latest games on PlayStation 2 point to Rockstar's
very recent arrival.
However you perceive Rockstar, Mr. Houser's kinetic personality appears
to be enough to run the company with his own energy alone, as IGNPS2's
Doug Perry found out in a phone interview today. So, what did he have to
say about the next generation wars? How will Sony fare against XBox and
Gamecube? What is the next step for Rockstar? When will we see Grand
Theft Auto? Mr. Houser did his best to stay on target.
The Next Generation Wars
IGNPS2: The new era of videogames is in the process of arriving,
with Dreamcast, PS2, and X-Box and Gamecube on the way. What's your
opinion about the next generation of game systems?
Sam: There is a lot coming. To have four consoles in just a
matter of three years is quite a lot to swallow. So it's going to be an
interesting time. I look at everything as a consumer. You have to
remember I love making them, but more than that I love to play the
bloody things. It's going to be a good time for consumers. We have tried
to come out as strong as we could on PS2, and from our perspective, we
certainly feel that Sony is going to be a very, very strong partner for
us and a very strong contender in what's being described as the next
console wars.
But you have to take your hats off to Sega. From a sort of company view,
they are the weakest of the four companies [Sega, Nintendo, Sony,
Microsoft]. But one of the best games I have played this year -- and in
my opinion -- is still one of best games of this year is Virtua Tennis.
If you had told me a month before I started playing Virtua Tennis, that
my favorite game would be a tennis game, I would have smacked you. But
in fact, it's an incredible game and it shows that Sega knows what it's
doing when it comes to software. The machine is a good machine and it
has a strong following. Sega has done a great job, it's got innovative
software, you know, with Seaman, Jet Grind Radio, and hardcore games,
and you simply have to be impressed with Sega's work. They have done it,
to some extents, against business odds.
Obviously, with the PS2, I think that Sony is going to break the myth of
the last generation leader being unable to continue its lead into the
next generation. I think that Sony will have to do something really
extraordinary to mess that up. If I could sit here with the much-needed
crystal ball, I could answer the questions as to who will win the
upcoming wars. But it's a tough question.
We're very excited about working on the XBox, it's an incredible
machine, and it's much more...it's a very familiar environment to work
on, more of a sort of PC-based system. And when you talk about a company
like Microsoft being involved in console hardware, I don't think
they're only going to try and win, they're going to do everything they
can to win. But who's going to win between Sony and Microsoft? That's a
really hard call, right now. I probably wouldn't want to bet my house on
it just yet.
I think that from the consumer side of things, when you are getting 30,
40, 50 million units going into the mass market, people are very
familiar, very comfortable with the Sony name. They have grown used to
that over the years. Microsoft will really have to tackle the marketing
point of view, but from a technology point of view, well, it comes down
to more than just who has the best hardware. When I used to work in the
record industry, I had friends who played games, and when they spoke
about games, they didn't say, "Oh, I am going to buy a videogames
system." They said, "I'm going to go get a PlayStation." Microsoft can
learn a lot from Sony's marketing efforts on PlayStation and with the
Sony Walkman.
We haven't even mentioned the Gamecube. When you even mention the idea
of a million polygon Mario, I start to drool. On the one side it'll be
heaven to have all of these consoles, it's pure heaven, but a lot of
people also will be confused. Two or three years from now, one to two of
these companies will pull ahead and the others will have to figure out
how bring their games to market.
Rockstar Comes into the Spotlight
IGNPS2: What is Take-Two and Rockstar's strategy for the next
generation systems? Will you try to put everything on all systems, or
will you be particular and specialize? What is your strategy on how
Rockstar will approach the next generation systems?
Sam: I strongly believe that some of the better games are made
exclusively for a particular platform. It's much easier when you know
the target platform. Obviously there are commercial forces at work, but
we would like to have a key property on each of the consoles. However,
having every game for every system waters things down. So... Right now,
we're working title by title. We have to remain relatively optimistic.
Who knows what system, 12 months from now, is going to be the top
system? We're trying to make intelligent decisions where gamers want to
be and what games they want on each system.
IGNPS2: What do you think about developing for PS2?
Sam: Well, when everybody [i.e. developers] pulled open their
PS2s out of the boxes, they said, "Wow, what a beautiful piece of kit."
You know, they do look incredible. And then when we plugged them in and
started to get to work with them, it was kind of like everybody took big
deep breaths and said, "Oh my God, how are we going to do this?" And
then, very quickly, within about two weeks, we started getting positive
results, and we started making the games, which is what I care about.
From our own experience with Angel Studios and with other teams, the
system is challenging but not any more than any new system. Now that
people are starting to get through the first round of games, I think you
are going to see some incredible things. You know, when people really
are able to unlock the power of what this thing can do. And I think that
when you get to speak to it in the right way, you'll be able to get it
to do some amazing things. When we first started setting things up,
there were some initial moments of concern. In fact, going a step up
from that, there was some real fear, but two or three weeks later we
cracked a lot of those concerns and once we got some momentum going, we
were able to make some real strides.
All About Grand Theft Auto 3
IGNPS2: What about your games on PS2? Are you in development with Grand Theft Auto for PlayStation 2?
Sam: Well, I'm not really allowed to talk too much about GTA, you
know the powers that be always like to tape my mouth up. But Grand
Theft Auto 3 is in development, and with the version of the game that we
are coming out with on PS2 at the end of next year we really are
looking to bring back the rawness that the original had. We want to
relate that in the 3D power that the PS2 enables us to. The PS version
really wasn't the game that we are now able to bring out on PS2 in 3D.
We just couldn't do it. We couldn't have enough cars on the screen, we
couldn't have enough pedestrians roaming the streets. And now, we really
can do that and we're really excited about what we can create. We
really want to come out with something that's truly, genuinely
gameplay-led and genuinely fun to play. And it's got humor and it's got
wit, and it's got all of the things that we have tried to pack into
Grand Theft Auto before. And now we're really taking it to the next
level and it's PlayStation 2 that's allowing us to do that.
I don't want to give away too much... but the game is fully running on
the PlayStation 2. We have all of the maps built, you can drive around,
you can walk around, you can get in and out of cars... I tell you,
having worked on the game from that 2D top-down perspective, it feels
very, very different. When you go up to a car, and press the infamous
"carjack" button, and in 3D the person gets the driver out of the car,
throws him on the street, and jumps in and scoots off, it feels very
different than it did before. It's going from top-down animated to live
action 3D, if you understand what I mean. You will see the game from a
classic third-person perspective position, like Tomb Raider; it's going
to be that perspective, inside and out of the car. We can put the camera
anywhere we want to put it and we're still playing with exactly where
we want to put it, but we're still working on it.
And we are playing with the camera in GTA. You will no longer have the
top-down viewpoint, instead you'll have a game that is viewed from a
third-person perspective, and we're working on a lot of different ideas.
Wouldn't it be cool to play the game from the driver's perspective? We
want you to feel like you're in the game far more than in GTA and GTA2,
and with this next generation system, we now have that ability.
It's going to be called Grand Theft Auto...something. Maybe GTA 3, something like that. We haven't decided yet.
Duke Nukem, Austin Powers, Oni, and More
IGNPS2: What are your next-generation games? Spokespeople from
your company have said in other reports that as many as 12 to 14 games
are coming out next year, many of which will appear on PS2.
Sam: We have quite a lot of games in development, but again I can't talk about them all. But here are the games in a nutshell:
- Oni -- the San Jose team of Bungie is working very hard on the PC
version, and the PS2 version will follow two weeks after; it should come
out in the first quarter 2001.
- The PS2 version of Duke Nukem is being developed by
N-Space and is due in the middle to end of next year [2001]; it will be a
single-player action adventure game, but not an online game. The game's
creator 3D Realms will oversee the game every step of the way. It'll be
a third-person perspective game, but we are working very hard to make
it feel like a first-person shooter, but from a third-person
perspective. So, we're working on making it fast, furious, and really
compelling to play.
- We are working on a funny adventure game starring Austin
Powers. This is in development with N-Space and is exclusive to PS2.
This game will be truly great, you can play as many different characters
in the game, including Fat Bastard and Scott, etc., and we want to make
it fun and most importantly -- funny. This game will be delivered in
the third-person perspective, but we're fiddling around with many
aspects of the game, and players will also play the game from a
first-person perspective, and even a from a kind of Resident Evil fixed
camera perspective. This game is due at the end of 2001.
- Other projects -- We're working on between 10-15 games for
PS2. We are going to have several games that will really be able to
show what the next generation of Sony's console can do.
Are we going to see sequels to Midnight Club and Smuggler's Run?
Sam: Let me put it this way: I love Angel Studios. I want you to
write that down -- I love Angel Studios. I think that Diego (Angel's
President Diego Angel) is a great man, he runs a great company, and...I
am so impressed by the commitment that went in to these high quality
games. I am not going to stop working with them. So, if that can give
you any hint, then take it for what it is. We're all huge fans of
Midtown Madness, it was a mind-blowing game, and the fact that we were
able to take some of their technology that they have built over the last
couple years and bring them into a more funky game like Midnight Club,
it really impressed me. I don't want to stop doing this kind of thing.
When I start looking at this same kind of game as a multiplayer title
over the Internet, the excited part of my brain really starts to buzz.
If you can imagine playing a game like Midnight Club with 16 people in
different parts of the US and the world, it's really fantastic. Is it
part of our future? It certainly is part of my plan. I don't know if
it's part of the company's plans, because we have yet to find out what
Sony's plans are for the online. I have no hard facts what they are
doing with what they are doing on the online side of things. I will say
this, I would be very surprised if Sony lets the XBox or the Gamecube
come onto the market without some kind of online component up and
running on its own system. I would be very surprised if that happens.
IGNPS2: Does Rockstar have games planned online for the PlayStation 2?
Sam: Yes, absolutely. But absolute hard, firm plans? Well, as
soon as we find out what the hard facts are, there are a number of games
that we're looking at that will be absolutely compelling games online.
I'm excited to play Smuggler's Run on future versions, and when I can
see you from three miles away on a mountain top -- Smuggler's Run bring
the example for now -- and we can see you and your gang of real people,
that's very exciting to me.
IGNPS2: Does GTA lend itself to online play?
Sam: Definitely. We are in the process of thinking about how to
create an online persistent world based on the Grant Theft Auto
franchise. We've talked about it, and if we get it right, it will be
very compelling. We'll branch off certain, compelling games from the
Grand Theft Auto franchise and try to make new, fun versions of it. We
will also look at other projects for online as well.
On Sony's Hard Disc Drive
Sam: I think that the selling of the HDD is up to the smart
marketing people at Sony to make sure people, consumers, don't think
it's a rip off, and that they convince people it's a great buy, you know
that it will be imporant to acquire. But it won't happen without great
games. Sony has to bring it out with killer games to play online and to
sell it with them. That's the most important aspect. In the end, it
comes down to a few things. What will truly win this next generation war
is a combination of branding and content. Sony has a very powerful
brand. I'm sure that both Sony and Microsoft will have both have great
content as well.
--Interview by Douglass C. Perry
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