Dear Reader:
Formula 1 2009 confirmed for Wii
A portion of a Formula1 interview with Codemasters CEO Rod Cousens…
Q: The first game will be released next year. Talk us briefly through the development process that will be taking place over the coming months?
RC: It depends partly on format - portables are a lot easier as they don’t have such a rich graphical experience - but on dedicated consoles and PCs the way we write stems from what we call an ‘engine’, which for us is Codemasters’ EGO Engine. This is what drives DiRT™ and GRID™, so its pedigree on next-generation systems such as PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 is already proven. The Formula One games will have the benefit of this. It typically takes us two years to develop such a game, but a lot of the assets have already been created - we have a number of the tracks because they already exist in GRID™, and we have the basics of the car dynamics and handling.
Then there’s the issue of which format when - clearly we’ll be targeting formats where there’s been no Formula One experience for a number of years, and the Nintendo Wii, the fastest-selling hardware console in the world today, where the plan is to use the controller like a steering wheel. We’ll go through a parallel development process on that, the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3. The artwork involved will be intense and a lot of that will be done overseas to make sure we’re up to speed.