The Too Human Side of Denis Dyack, Part Three

A candid chat with the president of Silicon Knights
3/14/2008 12:00 AM | 0 Comments | Page 1 of 3

We tracked down Silicon Knights President Denis Dyack post-GDC to get details about the development of Too Human and more; read on for the conclusion of our interview, or start from the beginning and read Part One and Part Two.

Crispy Gamer: As we discussed before, you were a second party of Nintendo; now you're with Microsoft -- is Silicon Knights as a company happy with its relationship with Microsoft?

Denis Dyack: Yes, absolutely. Just to be clear to everyone out there, because I think it gets misconstrued, we're not a second party to Microsoft. We're not exclusive to Microsoft. We have a relationship with Sega, and we have other things in gestation right now. Microsoft has been great, and I look forward to seeing people's reactions to our collaboration on this project. I think we've created something pretty unique here -- something of which Microsoft and Silicon Knights can be proud.

Crispy Gamer: Obviously the Xbox 360 is doing quite well as a platform, but what do you think of the PlayStation 3?

Dyack: I think it's really picking up momentum, and it's probably going to get a strong establishment in parts of Europe. I think the whole market right now is really, really difficult to quantize with regard to who is doing what and where. The Wii is continuing to sell really well -- but the number of games and attach rates... Microsoft and the Xbox 360 have the best attach rates; that means a lot to third parties. Sony, I think, is getting fantastic momentum right now, and I think it was desperately needed. I have no idea where it's going to play out or how it's going to be. The brand name of Sony is very, very strong. Nintendo is coming out of the gate better than anyone had anticipated and still selling like wildfire. I think we have a very interesting console race, and I try to stay pretty much as neutral as possible on these things; I think they all have their advantages and disadvantages.

Crispy Gamer: Considering your work with the GameCube, what do you think of the Wii? Is this a platform for which you'd like to develop sometime?

Dyack: I think we'd like to develop for any platform that makes sense. Nintendo and where they've gone with the platform, I think, certainly surprised a lot of people. I think they've done very well, and I'm really happy that that's the case. They're really trying to do some things that are new and I think it's a great system. If the opportunity is right, would we develop for it? For sure, we wouldn't even hesitate. When you're a developer, it's a matter of opportunity and timing, and that's really what it comes down to. A lot of people out there think you pick and choose what exactly you want to do -- and to some extent the more established you are, the more you can do that, somewhat. By and large there's still a pretty big random factor involved when you're doing stuff, but yeah, sure, it's a great platform -- why not?

Crispy Gamer: There's this other project you're working on with Sega. It's been very super-secret. Are we going to find out more about this project later this year?