As always, very entertaining. 
1UP
1UP
1UP: I'll deal. So, I wanted to ask you a couple questions. You know, Japanese game development hasn't been in such good shape these days. Only the top-tier teams, you know, the very, very top tier team seem to be able to produce cutting-edge projects. While the bottom 80 percent of Japanese development seems to have to continue to put out 2D, sprite-based, turn-based RPGs for next-gen systems that look like they could run on PS1. Or they have to do downloadable content only. What do you think about the state of Japanese development?
TI: Yeah, since I've had a lot of freetime recently, I kind of I thought I would stop by and see what was going on at my alma mater, have a few drinks...I'm glad I bumped into you, but now you're asking me some pretty deep stuff all the sudden. I'm kind of drunk right now, so I'll speak my mind, but I think that the overall theme is just kind of the passage of time, right? As time passes, things change. Obviously, there's a lot of times to why that happened. Yeah, I think I'll be speaking a lot in metaphors. I hope you don't mind that.
You look at, for instance, back in World War II. You had aerial dogfight battle with 600 planes on each side. And then, as we got into say the Korean War, and now it's say maybe 50 or 60. And in modern times, with modern jet planes, you only need one or two to fight a battle. So you certainly see a progression like that. So, I do look on it as someone who likes fighter planes and thinks that they're really cool. The fact that fighter planes themselves have dwindled in number is certainly something that is somewhat regretful. But I still like fighter planes, and I think they're the coolest type of plane there is
One thing I will say is that, definitely, you have to have at least some fighter planes. Any country that doesn't have fighter planes is destined to be extinct. In that metaphor, I think that game companies that aren't able to do high-end development, or don't have developers who can work on high-end hardware are destined to ultimately be obsolete in the market. Make sense?
TI: Yeah, since I've had a lot of freetime recently, I kind of I thought I would stop by and see what was going on at my alma mater, have a few drinks...I'm glad I bumped into you, but now you're asking me some pretty deep stuff all the sudden. I'm kind of drunk right now, so I'll speak my mind, but I think that the overall theme is just kind of the passage of time, right? As time passes, things change. Obviously, there's a lot of times to why that happened. Yeah, I think I'll be speaking a lot in metaphors. I hope you don't mind that.
You look at, for instance, back in World War II. You had aerial dogfight battle with 600 planes on each side. And then, as we got into say the Korean War, and now it's say maybe 50 or 60. And in modern times, with modern jet planes, you only need one or two to fight a battle. So you certainly see a progression like that. So, I do look on it as someone who likes fighter planes and thinks that they're really cool. The fact that fighter planes themselves have dwindled in number is certainly something that is somewhat regretful. But I still like fighter planes, and I think they're the coolest type of plane there is
One thing I will say is that, definitely, you have to have at least some fighter planes. Any country that doesn't have fighter planes is destined to be extinct. In that metaphor, I think that game companies that aren't able to do high-end development, or don't have developers who can work on high-end hardware are destined to ultimately be obsolete in the market. Make sense?
1UP: In terms of hardware, you know, one hardware that obviously isn't just like a super powered PC is the very architecturally complex Playstation 3. And, do you think, in almost ironic fashion, that the PS3 and its complicated hardware has widened the gap between top-tier development teams and the smaller development teams with fewer resources? Meaning, do you think that the complexity of the hardware has actually made it harder for most medium-to-smaller Japanese development teams to keep pace with, say, what western developers are doing on the Xbox 360?
TI: First of all, I think that the PS3 was kind of an attempt by Kutaragi-san to create a uniquely Japanese computer to take on the Wintel standard. And I think that Kutaragi-san was very much a fighter pilot in the hardware realm just as I was a fighter pilot in the software realm, and in that sense I have a lot of respect for him. To me, having a fighter that's easy to pilot and as powerful, makes it easy to win. And that's my main goal, and that's why I choose to pilot a 360. One more thing I would add to that is that I don't think that developing for the PS3 is hard at all. It was much harder developing for the Famicom. Yeah, I mean, give someone who's developing for the PS3 a Famicom and see if they can make a game for it. They won't be able to. Yeah, that'll prove it. We'll bet a drink on it.
TI: First of all, I think that the PS3 was kind of an attempt by Kutaragi-san to create a uniquely Japanese computer to take on the Wintel standard. And I think that Kutaragi-san was very much a fighter pilot in the hardware realm just as I was a fighter pilot in the software realm, and in that sense I have a lot of respect for him. To me, having a fighter that's easy to pilot and as powerful, makes it easy to win. And that's my main goal, and that's why I choose to pilot a 360. One more thing I would add to that is that I don't think that developing for the PS3 is hard at all. It was much harder developing for the Famicom. Yeah, I mean, give someone who's developing for the PS3 a Famicom and see if they can make a game for it. They won't be able to. Yeah, that'll prove it. We'll bet a drink on it.
1UP: Okay, what advice would you give to the average Japanese development team? Not the ones that are already riding the technological edge -- like Kojima Productions, Square Enix and Capcom -- but the ones that are in that 75 percent and under percentile, struggling to keep pace with today's advancing game design. What advice would you give them to try and improve?
TI: Don't take off. Don't take off from the ground. You'll just be shot down.
TI: Don't take off. Don't take off from the ground. You'll just be shot down.
1UP: So when are you coming back to gaming?
TI: I'm normally someone who always keeps my promises, and you may have heard in previous interviews that I was going to announce something in July, and I was originally intending at that time to announce a journey to new pastures, if you will. And there's have been a lot of events that have forced me to push that back a bit, and for that I apologize to all the fans. I know there are a lot of fans who might be upset or confused, but I this is something that I had to do. So enough of that. I'll just say that the great wide open sky is waiting for me, and I will return to it, and I hope everyone is looking forward to what I do next. I want you to remember what I said earlier in this interview which is, I'm never gonna let my plane take off unless I'm sure that I'm going to win the fight.
TI: I'm normally someone who always keeps my promises, and you may have heard in previous interviews that I was going to announce something in July, and I was originally intending at that time to announce a journey to new pastures, if you will. And there's have been a lot of events that have forced me to push that back a bit, and for that I apologize to all the fans. I know there are a lot of fans who might be upset or confused, but I this is something that I had to do. So enough of that. I'll just say that the great wide open sky is waiting for me, and I will return to it, and I hope everyone is looking forward to what I do next. I want you to remember what I said earlier in this interview which is, I'm never gonna let my plane take off unless I'm sure that I'm going to win the fight.