Ian Livingstone: Do you think you’ll ever make another console game?
Peter Molyneux: That’s a very interesting question. I love the idea of the epicness that console games bring. If you think like that you can see there’s a future for them, but when you start to think of things that are smaller, experimental and innovative, I don’t really think that consoles are there for me anymore. The innovation and experimental side has always been on PC, that’s always been a bit underground and that’s not the case anymore with this thing [points to iPad]. Do I have ideas in my mind big enough for an epic console game? Probably, yeah. Will I ever go back to creatively running a 100-150-person team? I’m not sure.
Livingstone: What is it? The daily grind over two or three years with huge teams in which you only play a small part and then it’s out there and gone? Is that a deterrent or do you find the new ways to express yourself creatively, new ways of playing on this smartphone devices more interesting to you as a person?
Molyneux: I just feel at the moment that there is so much turbulence, so much change and so much diversity happening out there, that by the time you start a console project and then taking it through to completion over two years, the industry has changed so much. It’s no longer the cutting edge. Console gaming was the cutting edge up until two or three years ago. When the world of entertainment changes so much and so quickly, and when the devices we play on change so much and so quickly, that tradition of knowing what you’re going to get of console games is going to be something we have to deal with.
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The two also muse on the next generation of console hardware, with Molyneux himself predicting the focus of the Xbox One prior to its announcement.
Livingstone: What worries you about the industry today?
Molyneux: I think we have got to start realising that we’re a broad and diverse industry. If the people who are influential about making policy try to compartmentalise there, I think we’re going to make some mistakes. I would say as well and this is somewhat contentious, but I do think that the console manufacturers have to wake up to this very different world we’re in now. In the time it has taken them to announced their next generation hardware, these things [iPads] have gone through two or three iterations.
Livingstone: I’m surprised there are so many people who want to get into hardware now, with the Steam Box, NVidia getting into it, Ouya and the GameStick. Hardware has always been a bit of a mugs game. If you were head of Nintendo wouldn’t you be tempted to say ‘Well, forget all this stuff. Lets just put Mario on iPad.’ Would you put Mario on iPad?
Molyneux: Of course I would! I tell you the thing that everyone is obsessed about in hardware terms and its input 1 on the TV. There is this stat that came out (and I can’t remember the exact stat), that there is going to be 10 billion [dollars] spent on what is the new input 1 on the television. So everyone is fighting for it rather being your Sky box or your direct aerial, it could be an Xbox or PlayStation.
Livingstone: But what about when its going to be Nobox?
Molyneux: Exactly.
Livingstone: Software embedded into smart TVs connected to the internet. We’re in the Nobox society.
Molyneux: The consumers I think will pick the path of least resistance. The thing that is simplest to do, the easiest delightful setup. That’s what Apple gets right. The experience starts when you buy the box, not when you plug in all the leads. To keep all those brilliant epic console games, to keep them alive and to keep their investment we need the hardware manufactures to realise that they need to be part of this incredibly nimble and ever changing world. So I just want consoles to be around forever. I don’t want them to start being like my Hi-Fi. I don’t buy Hi-Fis anymore. We used to be excited about all these different Hi-Fi [brands]. They’ve got to be cutting edge and I just hope that’s what they are.
To read the full interview between Ian Livingstone and Peter Molyneux, as well as an exclusive interview with CD Projeckt RED on Cyberpunk 2077, hands-on impressions of Grand Theft Auto 5 and an inside look at Battlefield 4, buy games™ issue 135 available in newsagents and online in both print and digital. You can also subscribe at a discounted rate at GreatDigitalMags.
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