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Sucker Punch on inFamous 2

On Cole's new look, the power of the PS3 and Sony exclusivity.

Eurogamer inFamous 2 won't be out till 2011, but what happens next? Is this now a franchise? Do you have a long-term view?
Bruce Oberg

I don't think we have a super far vision. We work day to day, month to month, on trying to make the best game we can. A lot of times you put things together and get it presentable. Sometimes it's a bit of a scramble. We've always been a single-studio company. We just want to make one game at a time. We don't have mutliple teams. We're independent. We're not owned by anybody. We're going to try to make inFamous 2 the coolest experience we can.

We'll see where we want to go next. That could be with Sony. We have a great relationship with them. We love the PlayStation platform. I'm not lying when I tell you it's a really killer technological platform for us to work on. The support and marketing, and also their approach to us, to let us make the game we want to make, is really incredible. Our relationship with Sony has been just incredible, all through the Sly series and all through inFamous.

Eurogamer Do you own the inFamous IP?
Bruce Oberg

We do not. It is owned by Sony. Sly is, too. The Crash Bandicoot experience kind of shook Sony a little bit, and ever since then they wanted for their exclusive titles, they own the IP. They're giving us the freedom to make the game we want to make. That's a small price to pay for us. We're very happy being able to make the game we want to make.

Eurogamer If, towards the end of development of inFamous 2, Sony asked you to do a third game, would you say yes?
Bruce Oberg

We would give it serious, serious thought. We know how lucky we are. We're really lucky to have such a great relationship with such a top-flight publisher that lets us create original IP. The number of studios creating original IP is few and far between.

Eurogamer This year we've seen developer power emerge, with Bungie leaving Xbox 360 exclusivity and signing with Activision, and the Respawn guys signing with EA, and retaining the rights to their IP. The publisher is almost just a distributor.
Bruce Oberg

We've never thought of Sony as just a distribution arm. They've done a great job as a publisher for us, both giving us the freedom and helping us with marketing and decisions about how to make the game. They're providing us with a lot of great tools for making the game we want to make. Also, we get to call up the Naughty Dog guys and ask them questions occasionally.

Eurogamer What did you ask them?
Bruce Oberg

When I was first getting the sound system working on the PlayStation 3, the Naughty Dog guys were using the same sound system so we asked them about some of the technology there. They came to our studio and wanted to see how our workflow worked, how our tools pipeline worked. And then a couple of our guys went down and got a tour of their stuff. They're super smart. The Naughty guys just know their craft inside and out.

So it's always great to be able to share ideas - maybe not technology directly all the time. Although, for the original Uncharted technology, they allowed anyone inside of Sony to use it, to see their code if they wanted to. It was like, oh, I wonder how the savegame system is supposed to work. I can go look at the Uncharted code. Those guys got it working right.

We've been very, very happy with Sony.

Bruce Oberg is co-founder of Sucker Punch and has a sweet hat. inFamous 2 is due out on the PlayStation 3 in 2011.

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