Remedy's Matias Myllyrinne

I think all the developers out there - or most of us at least - we're absolutely in no hurry to move onto a new console cycle. There are still things that we can do with the current generation of hardware for the 360 and PS3, and certainly jumping to the next one...

We have a healthy installed base, and gamers have gotten a lot of the services that they wanted from stuff like Live and so forth. I don't think a leap is called for - especially with Natal and the other devices coming out, hopefully that will extend the life cycle.

I'm not in the know, so I can speculate like everybody else.

I think you're right.

We've been blessed - we did very well on the Max Payne games, and we weren't looking to cash out or just chill... so we were happy to put that money where our mouth is - and if you do that, people will follow, because you're putting yourself on the line.

Of course, the reverse is true as well - if you're not willing to put yourself on the line, then nobody else will back you up either - so that's worked for us.

Plus on the other hand, Microsoft is a very patient company. To be fair, the size of that company, for quarterly results, I don't think we make a big dent in their profit and loss either way... but on the other hand, what they do want is unique new IP on their console that the consumers will enjoy, and to that end I think our interests are aligned. We want to craft the best possible thriller and they want something unique and wonderful.

Well, I could get on my post-production soap box... how many games have you played that you see there's the potential of something really wonderful there, but it's not fully envisioned?

No. Working with Rockstar - those guys are terribly passionate, uncompromising, and there's a huge attention to detail in the things they do. I have a huge amount of respect for Sam Houser and his teams, and that applies to Blizzard as well.

Not to sell us short, but those guys are much larger organisations - we're still a small developer trying to do something unique and focused, and hopefully we're doing one or two things that nobody else is doing, and being positioned differently so we don't go head-to-head.

I think we're at 50 right now, but we have ten different nationalities - so especially during the Alan Wake development cycle we wanted to establish ourselves as an international player. Of course, we always worked in English, and with a game like this you're relying very much on a strong publisher like Microsoft that has a lot of resources.

And then you're also working with a lot of other companies - I wouldn't call it a film-style production, but you're still getting the focus very much on the core yourself, and then for example props and models will come from somewhere else, facial and motion capture come from Phoenix, stunts from New York, sound design from Los Angeles... there's a lot of external stuff that's happening.

This is where the productions are slightly more flexible, but you're also able to tap into the right talent, and you're not carrying that for such a long development cycle.