Tag Archives: david braben

Frontier’s David Braben has told VG247 that console versions of Elite 4 are being considered.

“We are looking at console, yes,” said the developer, speaking in Brighton earlier this month.

Braben, however, refused to be drawn on specifics on the next installment in the classic space exploration franchise, calling it “very, very deep and dark” and explaining that it’s been in development for so long because of resource issues.

“I know, I know, and it becomes a running joke: I’m fully aware of that,” he said when asked about the title’s extended work period.

“The problem with Elite is that we started a project then stopped it. That’s the problem that’s happened. It’s the sort of game we have to get absolutely right. It’s got to be brilliant.”

No date on this as yet. Braben’s also working on The Outsider and “other projects we haven’t announced yet.”

Speaking to VG247 at Develop, Frontier’s David Braben confirmed that there are no plans in place to bring WiiWare smash LostWinds to either Live or PSN, but that the UK developer has other plans for downloadable 360 and PS3 content.

“Not at the moment, no,” he said when asked if LostWinds would make it to other consoles.

“But be will be supporting Live and PSN with something else… We at Frontier have this really fun [forum] called Game of the Week. That gets so many rich ideas – we’ve got this rich bucket of ideas – that it makes sense to do a project that’s appropriate to a platform.”

Braben refused to be drawn on the identity of any game for PSN or Live, saying only that he “can’t talk about it” at the moment.

Frontier had a good experience with using WiiWare as the distribution platform for platform adventure LostWinds, with Nintendo confirming the game as the most downloaded on the service in Europe.

Hopefully we won’t have to wait too long to find out what David’s up to here.

Everyone knows Frontier’s going to do a LostWinds sequel, right? From the sound of it, so does Frontier.

“We’d be stupid not to look at the LostWinds world,” studio boss David Braben told VG247. “But we’re not announcing anything yet.”

Stupid indeed. Press surrouding the WiiWare adventure was “positive,” to say the least.

“I was pleasantly surprised,” said Braben of the reaction to the game. “One of the problems of writing games is that you’re expecting to do well, because it’s your baby and you love it, but I’m very pleased with what we did.”

Braben said the development of LostWinds took him back to the good old days of bedroom coding.

“It reminds me of development a long time ago, where three or four months seemed like a long time,” he said.

Don’t be vastly shocked if you hear about a sequel sooner rather than later.

Speaking at Develop in Brighton yesterday, Frontier boss David Braben has decried the practice of selling used games in the UK, saying it’s “not tolerated by other industries.”

“More than half their floor area is dedicated to pre-owned and that is something as an industry we don’t see,” Braben said of UK retail chain Gamestation.

“Those same retailers are only carrying new copies of games from the past few months – if it’s a game that’s been out for two months and you want to buy one from a shop not Amazon and you don’t want pre-owned, it’s very hard.

“This is essentially rental, and it’s not tolerated by other industries… Why can we not introduce special ‘for rental’ copies?”

Thanks, Destructoid.

We had a one-on-one chat with David yesterday, the first fruit of which was this piece about The Outsider. We’ll have more from the interview soon.

Speaking at Develop in Brighton today, Frontier boss David Braben’s given the first solid details on The Outsider, saying the game is an open-world action title based on the story of a framed cop.

“Obviously, we’d be mad not to consider GTA as competition because of the open-world nature, but in terms of the story-telling, I’ve not really seen people that are in that [place] yet, but I think that will come. I do think we’re genuinely innovating there,” he told VG247 today when asked which games he’d consider competitive to the secretive project.

“The themes: there are a lot of other where you get agents accused of terrible things. Certainly in cinema that’s very common.”

Braben added: “We’ve worked a long time on technology, and it’s been in game development now for more than a year.”

He described it as being pitched at the 18-35 year-old male.

“Yes, very much,” when asked if that was the target audience. “We’re writing the game for the sort of people that are working on it. You will get a game that’s very rewarding to play.

“It’s a very, very exciting project for us. It brings in some really interesting new issues to game development. It’s fantastic. Just dealing with a story that’s genuinely open presents lots of new challenges.

It’s open-world, but it’s getting the story [right]. If you think of most stories they’re very linear with the occasional branch: it’s not like that.”

The developer boss wouldn’t be drawn on a release date, saying he wants to keep the title under wraps to prevent fatigue.

“That’s intentional,” he said of the lack of information on the game. “We don’t want to put lots and lots of news about something in advance. It’s good to drip a bit out.”

The Outsider has previously been confirmed as an Xbox 360, PS3 and PC release.

Speaking in this Edge editorial, Frontier’s David Braben has added voice to the opinion that British games-related university degrees are ill-equipped for the task of preparing candidates for development jobs.

“The rise of video games degrees at British universities are not helping, as they are failing to equip graduates with the necessary skills to build a career in the industry,” he said.

“Many of these courses are Media Studies courses at their core. Of the 81 UK universities offering video gaming-related degrees, only four are accredited by Skillset – the Sector Skills Council for creative media – and no further accreditations have been listed in the intervening two years.”

Braben was speaking primarily of the migration of British development abroad due to tax rises in the UK and breaks in countries such as Canada and France.

Full thing through the link.

Speaking to the BBC, Frontier boss David Braben has slammed British university games courses, saying the huge majority of them do not prepare students for the rigours of development.

“95% of video gaming degrees are simply not fit for purpose. Without some sort of common standard, like Skillset accreditation, these degrees are a waste of time for all concerned.”

He added: “We are facing a serious decline in the quality of graduates looking to enter the industry. The dearth of maths, physics and computer science graduates is hitting us hard.”

Braben is one of the members of industry campaign body “Games Up?”, a group pushing the UK’s Parliament to actually do something about anything related to games, other than putting different-coloured stickers on them.

More through the link.

Bungie’s Damian Isla is now confirmed as a keynote speaker for Develop 2008, as is Frontier’s David Braben, Naughty Dog’s Richard Lemarchand and Microsoft Game Studios’ Phil Spencer.

The event will take place in Brighton on July 29-31, which each of seven conference tracks – Art & Animation, Design, Production, Coding, Business, Audio and World Vision – being headed up by a different speaker.

Isla will be talking about Halo AI, having worked on the series as an engineer for the past eight years.

Press release after the link.

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Frontier’s David Braben is unsurprisingly very happy about the response LostWinds has been getting across the board.

“‘Pleased’ is an understatement,” he told GI of the reaction from critics and fans.

“The reaction has been exceptional – from both reviewers, which is very pleasing, and also the user reviews are extremely high – we’ve also had very many people who have taken the time to email us directly with their entirely positive feedback, which is very appreciated.”

The cutesy adventure launched in Europe alongside WiiWare last night. More quotes through the link.

That was quick. Frontier’s site’s carrying confirmation of a second LostWinds title and is allowing you to sign up for upcoming info on the game.

Click here to REGISTER FOR ADVANCE INFORMATION on Frontier’s forthcoming LostWinds sequel containing amazing new gameplay as Toku and Enril’s incredible adventure to save Mistralis continues – Frontier is registered under the UK’s Data Protection Act and won’t use your details for any other reason.

LostWinds launched alongside WiiWare in the US yesterday, and is attracting a fair amount of attention for being actually “good”. Thanks, GoNintendo.

It’s tiny, but it says what you wanted to hear: Frontier’s LostWinds is worth your money. Of course it is. The WiiWare game launched yesterday alongside the service in the US. The piece’s conclusion:

The lack of a map and short length aside, this game is great and should definitely be a part of any Wii owners library. It is one of those games where you can just stop, relax, and just soak up the atmosphere. The future of Wii Ware looks good if games like LostWinds will continue to come out on the service.

More through the link.

Just in case you’d forgotten, LostWinds is launching alongside WiiWare in the US today.

The Frontier-developed adventure is a definite star in the service’s launch line-up, featuring “Toku, a young boy who is the only one who can help you in your quest to release a curse placed on the stunningly presented, magical land of Mistralis.”

You cannot say fairer than that. Press release after the link.

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Speaking to videogaming247, Frontier head David Braben has confirmed that the company’s just-announced project, LostWinds, will be released alongside Nintendo’s WiiWare download service.

“It’s a WiiWare launch title,” he said. “Yes, we do have [an idea of when it's coming out], but if you want release dates for WiiWare I would talk directly to Nintendo. We can’t give out that information other than say we’re planning to be a WiiWare launch title.”

Braben added, “Just on that point: Nintendo are very sensitive about it.”

WiiWare was apparently confirmed for a May 12 release date in the US today. We’re still waiting for a European launch date for the service.

Frontier Developments, headed by Elite-creator David Braben, has revealed internal project LostWinds today, a “beautiful” game that will only be available via Nintendo’s WiiWare download service.

“The object of the game is to explore the world and solve puzzles, but it’s the joy of the way the whole thing works that’s key,” Braben told videogaming247. “The idea is that an evil spirit, Balasar, has imprisoned all of the spirits, including the Wind Spirit, and your character has found a wind stone. So it’s a story of restoring things to the world.”

He added: “We’ve gone for a beautiful style. We’re trying to get a style that’s recognizably Lost Winds. It’s a nice, consistent style. It’s not trying to go for the very standard look annotated by so many games in the last few years, which is the Manga, big-eyed look. We’re going for our own look.”

The game’s control method involves moving the wind and protagonist, Toku, in tandem using Wii’s motion-sensing features.

“It’s about using the Wii controller in a novel way, where you’re controlling essentially one character – your little guy Toku – with the Nunchuck, and the other character – the wind, in the form of the Wind Spirit – with the Wiimote,” Braben said.

LostWinds came about through an internal process called Game of the Week, a company forum for debating ideas and general game design, and has been a completely independent project for Frontier, and the first designed for distribution solely by download. Braben explained that the focus on digital distribution in no way meant LostWinds was a lesser game.

“We’ve come at it as if it’s full game development, for the want of a better term,” he said. “We haven’t seen this as short-changing people. [WiiWare] is a different way of getting games, and it’s not had all of the overhead that tends to come in a normal process of publishing games. We’ve been able to go directly to the good bit, and make sure we’ve tried that out without necessarily making it look pretty for that process.

“The main difference is the fact that we’re doing it ourselves. We don’t have to gain the approval or the cooperation of a publisher first. We’re really thinking like customers, like the people who buy the game.”

As soon as we have a release date, so will you. The game will be a WiiWare launch title, as detailed here.