Firaxis' Soren Johnson: 2006 good for Nintendo, bad for PC gaming

Posted Dec 31, 2006 at 4:42AM EST by QJ Staff

Listed in: Wii, Nintendo DS, PC Gaming Tags: Firaxis Games

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Firaxis Games Designer/Lead Programmer Soren Johnson was a former EA designer. His game credits include Knockout Kings 2000 and 2001; Sid Meier's Civilization III; Sid Meier's Civilization III: Play the World, Sid Meier's Civilization III: Conquests; Sid Meier's Pirates!; Sid Meier's Pirates! for Xbox; and Sid Meier's Civilization IV.

In an interview with CVG, Johnson shares his views on Nintendo, PC gaming, and more.

Biggest Success Story of the Year: Nintendo
"The one-two punch of the DS and the Wii is making Microsoft and Sony look like dinosaurs. "

Biggest Challenge to PC Gaming: Consoles
"PC game developmentt has suffered because most publishers are putting their energy and money into console development...the industry's best studios are primarily focusing on consoles...the quality of console games will go up while the quantity of good PC games will go down."

Biggest PC Gaming Hype: DirectX 10
"I suppose the better graphics are nice, but it's not going to be changing the way PC games are played at this point."

Most Important Change To PC Gaming Industry: Digital Distribution and Flexible Pricing
"The PC games industry needs to embrace digital distribution and learn to be flexible on cost. Owning a game via Steam is very attractive to me...I can play it on any computer in the world without my CD. There should be a wide variety of fun games available online for all sorts of prices: $5, $10, $20, $30, $40, etc."

Biggest Expectation for 2007: Third party developers for Wii
"I'm looking forward to seeing third-party games blossom on the Wii like they have on the DS. Every week, a major publisher seems to be opening a new Wii-focused studio."

The Perfect Videogame: Shh!
"I'm working on that game right now. I can't talk about it, of course!"

You can read the full interview via the Read link.

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