Interview: Mark Cochrane, former producer and worldwide acquisitions manager at Psygnosis

From PC World comes an interesting interview with former Psygnosis producer Mark Cochrane. Saturn fans should recognize Psygnosis, they developed Destruction Derby and Wipeout 2097.  Mark sheds a bit of light on porting the games to the Saturn:

Games such as Wipeout and Destruction Derby were initially released and found success on the PlayStation before they were later ported to the Sega Saturn and PC. What challenges did Pysgnosis face in porting the games to the other two platforms?

MC: The PlayStation and Saturn platform hardware was very different, and the way code needed to be written for each made porting challenging. For example, when making PC ports we needed to have a decent minimum spec and graphics card support for the games to be enjoyed.

Games such as Destruction Derby and Wipeout 2097 were ported to the Sega Saturn, but games such as Formula 1 and Destruction Derby 2 were notably absent. How and why were certain titles selected for porting to the Saturn and some weren't?

MC: From memory, I believe most would make it over eventually, but the porting challenges remained and finding teams capable of doing the work in a timely manner contributed in largish delays between releases on the formats.

Check out the full interview here!

New Yu Suzuki Interview Reveals Shenmue Saturn Info!

If you haven't read 1UP's interview with Yu Suzuki, DO SO NOW! It's an excellent read and reveals many things that were unknown of Suzuki's past work, as well as hints towards what we could expect from a Shenmue 3 (he seems to favor the 360 and would work with just about anybody to get it made). But this is a Saturn blog, so let's stick to Saturn information. Part two of the interview touches on the short lived Saturn version of the game. Check out these cool factoids:

Note: JM is the interviewer, YS is Yu Suzuki and TH is Tak Hirai, Lead Programmer of Shenmue

JM: Shenmue began development on the Sega Saturn. Besides the visual elements, how much of it had changed by the time you began development for the Dreamcast? How long were you working on the Saturn version?
TH: Six months, just on programming.
YS: It's amazing how much we accomplished on the Saturn. It's unthinkable now.
TH: Yeah, it was something. I never want to do that again.

JM: What made you move it from the Saturn to Dreamcast? Was it because the Saturn was dying in terms of sales? Or was it that you realized you needed more powerful hardware to realize the game?
TH: The timing. The Saturn was coming to an end.
YS: Yeah, it was coming to a point where didn't make sense to release a game on the Saturn.
TH: There was also talk that the Dreamcast could handle the sword fight that we wanted to include in the game so we decided to reprogram the game for Dreamcast. We were also able to give input on the development of the hardware to match the game.

They end the interview with a mention of Fighters Megamix:

JM: Final question. Many years ago there was a newspaper advertisement promoting a "Virtua Fighter vs. Tekken." Was that concept ever supposed to become a game? Do you think a Virtua Fighter vs. Tekken game would work and if not, what franchises would you pair up?
YS: A long time ago we did a promotion with Virtua Fighter and Tekken characters. As a promotion and advertisement to get people's attention, I think it was a success and was good. But, it's not really my style and I don't like to mix games. I'm a purist. In my opinion, the only time you mix and match is when there are no new ideas and mixing is the last resort. So, it's not a very good thing. As long as there are new ideas, I'd rather prioritize working on new ideas.
JM: Then how do you rationalize Fighter's Megamix?
YS: [Fighter's Megamix director, Hiroshi] Kataoka likes that stuff.

NiD.com Interviews Yuji Naka: NiGHTS on the PC?!

The folks over at NiGHTSintoDreams.com have scored a pretty awesome interview with Yuji Naka. It's a cool read, with a majority of the discussion focusing on the Saturn classic rather than the Wii unclassic. I won't spoil too much, but Steven Spielberg and that rumored NiGHTS Saturn controller are brought up. Check out the interview!

During the interview, Naka brings up a PC version of NiGHTS that was released in 2003. That was news to the interviewer and it is news to me as well! Check out the Japanese site detailing the 2003 premiere.