Lost Planet

Okay, so Lost Planet has launched, and now that the dust snow has settled, I have some more treats for you. If you’ve kept up with the blog at all, you know I’ve done a ton of exclusive Lost Planet developer interviews.

This week I am bringing to you an interview I did with Lost Planet Producer Jun Takeuchi. I conducted the interview during lunch on the day of the launch event, since I was with the guys—Keiji Inafune, Jun Takeuchi, and LP Director Kenji Oguro—all day Thursday and Friday as their translator for our “media tour.” Actually, if you have seen any of the video interviews we did, that’s my voice on the video.

So today I have my interview with Takeuchi-san, along with a bunch of pictures from that day, including some shots from a field trip with Takeuchi-san and Oguro-san to the submarine-slash-museum on Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco. Next week will be my interview with LP Executive Producer Keiji Inafune, so be sure to check that out.

Click to read the full interview.

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[Brian] What was your favorite album from 2006?

[Takeuchi] There’s this band, Orson

[Brian] A US band?

[Takeuchi] No, not American. British, I think. I listened to their CD a ton last year.

[Brian] What kind of band are they?

[Takeuchi] Regular rock, “Brit Pop,” I guess.

[Brian] Okay, cool. I’ll have to check them out. So, what was your favorite movie of last year?

[Takeuchi] My favorite movie from last year? Wow, that’s a tough question. Hold on, let me think. There were so many good films out last year. One I really liked a lot was Letters from Iwo Jima. But, I don’t know if I could necessarily call it my “favorite” from last year. I guess I just have a hard time picking one single “favorite” of anything, especially movies.

[Brian] I know what you mean. So what were a few other films you really enjoyed last year?

[Takeuchi] There were some good Japanese films last year, too. One I really liked was called Kamome Shokudo (Kamome Diner). There was an anime, too, called Toki o Kakeru Shojo, which came out in Japan. That one really left an impression on me.

[Brian] Cool. I’ll have to look those up later. Moving on, do you drive to work every day, or do you take the trains?

[Takeuchi] Oh, I drive.

[Brian] When you’re driving to work, or driving home, how do you pass the time? Do you listen to the radio? CDs?

[Takeuchi] I listen to the radio, a lot of different kind of music. A lot of Japanese music, and western. Overall I mainly listen to Japanese pop music, I guess.

[Brian] What do you like to do in your spare time, besides play video games? Like, when you just want a break from video games, how do you relax?

[Takeuchi] Yeah. I’m a HUGE gun freak. In Japan real guns are outlawed, but there is a big industry in fake, model guns. They look very real. Anyway, I like to collect those.

[Brian] So do they have shooting ranges in Japan, where you can at least go and shoot guns in that kind of enclosed environment?

[Takeuchi] No, we don’t have those like in America. All I get to do is collect my model guns.

[Brian] Before Lost Planet, what other games had you worked on at Capcom?

[Takeuchi] The first title I worked on at Capcom was Street Fighter II for the SNES. I was a background artist for that game. I also worked on Super Street Fighter II and the Resident Evil games (for RE 1 and 2 I worked as a 3D animator.), I was the director for Onimusha, and then producer for Onimusha 3. And most recently, of course, I produced for Lost Planet.

[Brian] Very cool. Moving on, at what point in the development of Lost Planet did you decide to take it from a single-player story mode game into the realm of online multiplayer?

[Takeuchi] Oh, from the very beginning. We knew that online multiplayer would grow to be a much bigger part of games going forward, so from the get-go, the multiplayer was a part of the plan.

[Brian] How was it creating a game for Xbox Live, especially considering this is basically Capcom’s first online multiplayer game for Xbox Live on the Xbox 360?

[Takeuchi] It was very challenging, to say the least, having never worked with Xbox Live before. I had been interested in doing something for Xbox Live for a while, and the whole team was very positive about it. They all worked together and pulled it off. I think the quality of the finished product, the online experience, speaks for itself.

[Brian] Going forward, in general do you think you’d like to work with Xbox Live more, making different multiplayer games, or different co-op play experiences?

[Takeuchi] Yes, definitely. I’d love to do something co-op online, taking a look at what new kinds of things we can do with cooperative play within the context of different games and game worlds. But with Lost Planet, I think we did pretty well for our first venture into the Xbox Live online gaming world, and I’m looking forward to exploring even more possibilities.

[Brian] Do you get to play video games at home much, Lost Planet and such? Is there a chance people playing online have played with/against you in Lost Planet without knowing it?

[Takeuchi] Yeah, I play a few nights a week, in the evenings. So I guess even some of your readers, depending on what time of day they’re on Live, have been in a match with me.

[Brian] You play late at night after work, I take it?

[Takeuchi] Yeah, pretty late. So I guess in America, if people are playing in the mornings, they might run into me.

[Brian] Cool. So, besides Lost Planet, are you or have you personally been playing any other multiplayer games on Xbox Live?

[Takeuchi] I’ve played Gears (of War) online a bit here and there.

[Brian] Who’s the best Lost Planet player on the development team, and where would you rank compared to everyone else on the team?

[Takeuchi] I’d say probably the best person on the team is Egawa, one of the animators. He’s extremely good. I wouldn’t stand a chance against him. But overall I’m probably at the low end of the rankings compared to everyone else on the team.

[Brian] When you play Lost Planet multiplayer at work, what mode do you guys usually play?

[Takeuchi] That would probably be the Post Grab mode, where you fight over control of the data posts. It’s so much fun. You never know who’s going to win till the very end, so every match is tense.

[Brian] Now that you’re finished with Lost Planet, what do you have planned next? Maybe a month’s vacation in Hawaii, or getting started on the next project, or working on downloadable content for Lost Planet?

[Takeuchi] I’ll be taking a short break, rest up a bit. Then I’ll be gearing up for my next project. I can’t say what it is, but I’m starting something new, so I need to get ready for that. I’m also the producer for RE5. So there’s a lot of communication involved between me and the team. Basically just nailing down what’s going to be in the game, that kind of stuff.

[Brian] In the past Japanese developers were considered the best in the world, producing hit after hit. But now the tables have turned, and the west is leading the industry. Considering this, what do you think western developers can learn from Japanese developers? And what do you think Japanese developers can learn from western developers?

[Takeuchi] Like you said, the tables really have turned. A lot of Japanese developers have pretty much given up, and just focus on making games for Japan. They dont think they can make games that will sell anywhere else. So this trend, this “game development isolationism,” I think is very troubling. I’m concerned about what will happen to the industry in Japan.

But it has always been Capcom’s policy to make games not just for Japanese gamers, but for gamers everywhere. I don’t think there are that many companies that still do this, try to make games for both Japan and the west.

I think western developers borrowed and learned from Japanese developers all those years when Japan was ahead. They built on that and just blazed ahead on their own. There’s so many new, creative, inventive games coming out in the west. Games like Gears (of War) and Halo built on the past but just take everything to the next level. I’ve learned a lot from games like that, and the whole team loves Halo. With Lost Planet we wanted to reproduce that fun factor (from Halo 2), where you can just boot up the game, hop online, and have fun right away.

But one thing I think Japanese developers need to learn from western developers, and this includes Capcom but I think we are already trying to learn, is basically the definition of “entertainment” when it comes to video games.

People say that RPGs are popular in Japan, but really it’s the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series that do well. There aren’t really any other big RPG series besides those two, that do really well, anyway.

So I think that if this trend continues, Japanese developers will just rely on those few big franchises. Japanese developers have to explore new territory, carve out new genres, try to make games that have universal appeal. That’s what we try to do at Capcom, and I wish more Japanese developers would as well. There’s a lot we can learn from western developers. And even though some Japanese companies may still think they’re on top, all you have to do is look at the data and you see that Japanese games only account for 1/3 of the market share in the US and Europe. So I wonder why some developers choose to ignore everyone outside of Japan.

Looking at another example, Japanese anime is spreading and gaining a lot of popularity outside of Japan. So there’s a universal appeal there that a lot of the Japanese games lack.

If western developers started making games aimed at the Japanese market, competing for the market share, a lot of Japanese developers might have a hard time competing.

So yes, I think there’s a lot to learn from America, from both the games and Hollywood movies and the like, when it comes to entertainment value.

[Brian] Lastly, is there anything you want to say to the fans reading this?

[Takeuchi] Sure. Of course we put a lot of time and effort into the story mode of the game, but we put just as much blood, sweat and tears into the multiplayer portion of the game. I think Lost Planet is very different from any other shooter out there. It’s got a very unique style and feel, very “Capcom.” We wanted to make it into a new kind of experience, different than anything people have played before. So I hope people get to play the game, not just the story mode, but spend a lot of time online. There’s plenty of Japanese gamers online too, so it’s a cool way to make some friends across the ocean.