Exclusive: Factor 5 Working On PS3 E-Distribution GamesExclusive: Factor 5 Working On PS3 E-Distribution Games

Author: by Brandon Sheffield, Simon Carless

Talking in an interview with Gamasutra, Factor 5 co-founder and president Julian Eggebrecht has revealed that his company, currently finishing Lair, is also making two PlayStation 3 EDI downloadable games, describing PS3 downloadable games as having "huge potential". Having asked Eggebrecht what trends and aspects of the game biz he's particularly looking to, next year, he commented: "Actually I'm really looking forward to 2007, because we're going to finish Lair, which is my biggest concern right now, but also, I'm really looking forward to working on a couple of smaller projects [for PlayStation 3], with the so-called EDI [E-Distribution Initiative] from Sony, which I think has huge potential, and personally as a director, I think it's one of these things that we in the creative community need a little bit." San Rafael-based Factor 5 started life as a small German developer in the late '80s, particularly known for the Turrican series, before moving to California to begin a long association with LucasArts and Nintendo on the Star Wars: Rogue Squadron series for both Nintendo 64 and GameCube. More recently, its deal with Sony has produced PlayStation 3 dragon combat title Lair. Therefore, with such small developer beginnings, it's obvious that Eggebrecht feels that smaller titles are a boon to both his staff and the company as a whole: "People who work on these two and a half year, three year projects have a chance, even within an organization like Factor 5, which usually works on these large games, to work on something small again." The Factor 5 president concluded: "That's the biggest thing I'm looking forward to in 2007, which is also going to be a challenge, because of course we were there about 15-20 years ago doing these small titles, so suddenly you've got these production challenges with working on something really, really small."