Bigben's Benoît Clerc

I think, like many publishers, we're looking for new ideas - and the guys with the most creative game ideas in the industry are at development studios. It's interesting to see what they've dreamt up in the past year.

We also go there to see the trends - because when you're doing 80-plus meetings in three days you'll always see some trends emerging. Plus we'll also look at the technology - see the studios that have good production pipelines and engines... and of course to see other publishers and distributors to network.

Actually we're possibly one of the only companies that isn't dark about that, because we've been doing very, very well. When you look at the NPD figures every month you'll see the hardware, software and accessories - and mostly the only one that's going up is the accessories, so we're pretty happy about that.

And in Europe at least, we have such a strong leadership in terms of accessories - on some consoles we have more than 60 per cent market share - so we're really dominating. In that kind of situation the player that's dominating is also the one that's taking the most of the cake.

On the software side - the bundled software - this strategy that was defined three or four years ago, now that we have identified what makes a good bundle that helps with profitability too. We're launching a few bundles this Christmas that hopefully will be huge successes.

Both sides, actually - we're really making sure they work together to ensure they're developed to make the most out of each other. But we don't consider accessories as just a bonus, no - this isn't the case at all. They're as important as the software.

Of course - the volume of games sold on the DS platform is still very important, but the value is taken by only a small number of titles. Small publishers like Bigben - or even slightly larger ones - aren't big enough to eat the cake from that table any more. We made a lot of money, like other publishers, in 2006 and 2007, of course.

Concerning the Wii, the decline is less brutal than the DS - and the fact that we have such a different offer thanks to our bundles helps. It's an offer that's very clearly targeted to the core audience on the Wii - the family - and we're always designing our games so that they're as often as possible playable by up to four players at the same time, on the same screen.

So it affects us less, because of our specific products - but if the Wii market declines more, we'll be affected more, as we're part of that environment.

The Wii is on a declining trend, so we won't see it go up suddenly in the life cycle - that's never happened in the past, either. Everyone is starting to wait for the Wii 2...

There will be a sales increase of Wii software and hardware, because it's Christmas and videogames are among the gift-purchsing habits - but it'll be less of an increase than last year.

Like everyone., yes of course - very eager. I had the opportunity to play on one for half an hour at E3, and it's a tremendous device.

We're trying to, but Nintendo is far more selective for the launch catalogue. We'll propose a couple of games that deserve their attention and use the benefits of the 3D in the machine - but I don't know. We're 100 per cent willing to go for the platform, of course.