Doug Lombardi heeft weer eens wat reporters te woord gestaan. Ditmaal was het gehouden interview echter maar van korte duur aangezien hij geregeld korte antwoorden gaf die vrijwel niet informatief zijn en hij dus liever voor zich wil houden. Zo gaat hij niet in op vragen die betrekking hebben op de next-gen consoles. Hij geeft dan ook totaal geen mening en vraagt over enkele maanden terug te komen met dergelijke vragen. Ook stellingen die gaan over eventuele uitbreidingen voor de Xbox of Xbox 360 van Half-Life 2 blijven onbeantwoord. Het gehele interview zag er als volgt uit:
Well, we suppose an obvious question to kick off with is why deliver Half-Life 2 on Xbox and not hold off for Xbox 360?
Doug Lombardi: We began work on the Xbox several years ago. Given that investment and the fact that there are still millions of active Xbox gamers, it just made the most sense to finish this work before switching to any of the next-gen consoles.
Why create a console port of Half-Life 2, and when during development of the game did you decide to do an Xbox version?
Doug Lombardi: Few reasons to do it: First, everyone wants to deliver their games to as many gamers/customers as humanly possible. With HL1, we attempted to bring it to the Mac, Dreamcast, and eventually landed it on the PS2 after the PC debut. With CS, we brought it to the Xbox after the PC debut.
In those cases, the games were created on a mix of id and Valve technology, so we opted to have others collaborate on bringing the games to the additional platforms. However with Half-Life 2, we are working with our tech only in Source. As such, we decided to do the development ourselves so that we could keep the code in shape for others to use on this and other platforms.
Finally, why Xbox? In the current generation of consoles, Xbox is the only with the horsepower to run HL2 and Source without degrading the graphics and sound to levels we considered unacceptable.
We have to say we were quite surprised – in a good way – by the visual quality of Half-Life 2 on Xbox. How did you find working with the hardware to achieve the standard you desired in this regard?
Doug Lombardi: With the exception of memory, the Xbox is quite a powerful machine, and that’s why it was chosen as the only current-gen system targeted for this game. And, through the use of streaming technology, we were able to avoid any potential issues of trying to fit a game with a min req of 256MB of RAM through a 64MB RAM pipe.
How faithful do you think the Xbox version is to the Half-Life 2 PC experience? Are you pleased with the way it turned out?
Doug Lombardi: Often times, the folks working on a PC to console translation (or console to PC translation) are tasked with creating some tiny new piece of gameplay, too often at the expense of not giving the primary piece of content the attention it deserves. We took a chance, remained entirely focused on translating the core of the game, with
the goal of delivering an un-compromised version of the single-player product. From what we’re hearing from friends and press who’ve played the final version, we achieved that goal.
What would say you’re most proud of in Half-Life 2 on Xbox?
Doug Lombardi: Shipping.
Do you have any plans at this stage to release multiplayer additions for Half-Life 2 on Xbox via Xbox Live?
Doug Lombardi: Nothing to announce at this time.
Half-Life 2: Aftermath is of course coming to PC shortly. Will you also be delivering this – and any potential further Half-Life 2 episodes planned – to Xbox? Or maybe Xbox 360?
Doug Lombardi: Time will tell.
Your games have lead on PC, but do you envisage this changing with the arrival of the next generation of consoles, and can we now expect all future Valve titles to appear on console as well as PC?
Doug Lombardi: Despite all the information-starved reports that the PC is dead as a platform, we’re content with our PC business. However, we are making strides to bring both our games and the Source engine to the next generation consoles as well.
What’s your impression of the next generation of consoles to date and are you able to tell us anything at this time about next-gen console projects you might be working on?
Doug Lombardi: Please ask me again in a few months.
