Alex Ward on Burnout PSP, Black and the future

Can you imagine playing this in your hand, sitting on the train, nine players wi-fi. It'll just be brilliant. We absolutely want to... I know the early stuff at E3 was very clearly demonstration, throwaway demos, but I'm confident we can absolutely make the best handheld racing game ever. It can really look great.

We haven't really started yet. We got a version running [on PSP], an early version of Burnout 3, and then we shelved work on it and concentrated on Burnout 3 because we had to see the machine. It's one of those things where it comes down to the quality of the screen. And when we got to E3 and we saw the screen was when we knew we could do it, because Burnout is a very fast 3D game. No one's seen... on GBA or anything there's not been any fast 3D racing stuff. There's been top-down, 2D. So if you can't see the other cars racing towards you, we're screwed, so should the design just be the Crash mode, should it be racing, but now...

I can talk very little about it, yeah [smiles]. Depends, what do you want to ask?

Ever since we signed Burnout 1 we wanted to do an FPS. I'm a big fan of console FPS. We're setting out to make a console shooter on PS2 and Xbox. And on PS2 our competition is Medal of Honor, Red Faction and Killzone. And can we make a game that's as good if not better than those games? Absolutely.

Well a lot of our R&D, our technology demos, are often based around shooting. But we've got some ideas - that scene is dominated by the PC and there's a split between console and stuff. We want to make a shooter just like Burnout that changes the way that genre is perceived.

Absolutely right. Burnout with guns. Because with GT4 coming out, for the first time people have given them a tough time and complained that you can't wreck the cars. And I think if we'd never made Burnout... Well they would always say that, but now they definitely want to say it.

We were originally tracking for next year so we'll probably say end of 2005, early 2006.

No. Not right now. When we set out and Criterion Games was sort of reformed and regrouped in 2000, we said right, we're going to make hit games on the consoles, on PS2 and Xbox. We said, right, what are we going to do? RPG? No. You're never going to beat Final Fantasy. We're willing to let that one go. Sports? Well, football? I mean, dream on. Every UK developer at one time has probably had a football game in development. And they can't, they're not going to do it. Can they beat EA and Konami? No. Fighting? Ever met a Western team? I think Argonaut were the last people to try it [possibly he means Argo satellite Just Add Monsters, who developed Kung Fu Chaos for Xbox]. A Western team make a fighting game? No way. It's ridiculous. So we said, right, what are the two big genres? Well, racing and sports, then after that shooting. So we're not going to do sports any time soon, but we love racing, and we love shooting. So that's the strategy for the group...

Not at the moment.

Busy finishing Burnout. There's too much stuff to look at here and now without worrying what's coming in the future. Although we keep informed with those guys and we kind of know some of the stuff that's coming down the line...

You tell me [smiles].

Yeah. Maybe we'll do something for that, I don't know. At the moment though, we're not. We're following the development and we know what's going on, but following Burnout 3 the next thing we'll get to work on really is PSP.

Depends on the team really. Depends on the team. If you didn't make a good PS2 game, you're not going to make a good PS3 game. And if you're rubbish on Xbox now, then go home, because there's no excuse for anybody to be rubbish on the Xbox really is there?