O~3 Entertainment E3 2005 Interview

While they are a new entry in the industry, O~3 Entertainment has already released one of the most unique and entertaining titles for the PS2 and GCN in 2004 in the form of the hand-drawn hit Alien Hominid. James Jursudakul of Anime Advanced was able to interview Steven Hosey, a former Namco employee and Product Marketing Manager of O~3 Entertainment at E3 2005, regarding O~3 Entertainment’s history, 2005 releases, and next-gen.

AMN: “So how did O~3 Entertainment come about?”

Steven Hosey: “How O~3 Entertainment came about was Bill Gardner was the former President of Capcom, Chris Jelinek was the EVP, and Hanako Watanabe was the CFO, who are the founding members of O~3. So what they did was they decided to leave Capcom and form their own publishing group. At that time I had left Namco and was the director of National Promotions and Channel Marketing. Chris had asked me to join head of the marketing here. In a way it’s a very independent company. We’re not sending any money back to Japan like when Chris and Bill was working at Capcom, where the profit base was going all back to Japan for the development.”

“So what we’re doing right now is that we see a lot of opportunity with games from developers that are forecasting between the 50,000 and 300,000 selling potential. The top ten publishers right now don’t really pay that much attention to them because it’s not 300,000 and above selling so they kind of boo them and send them on their way. So, there’s a huge potential for us to take titles such as Resonance (for X-Box), which are pretty much unheard of and from unknown development teams, and basically turn them on to new markets and consumers that they would never reach because the top ten never pay any attention to them. The best example is Alien Hominid (GC, PS2). It was an independent IP and it was based on a flash game. We were able to generate, I would say one of the best PR campaigns in the year so far. Alien Hominid was pretty much looked everywhere in all the gaming publications and online gaming sites. So it was a great story. The game sold itself because it was a unique idea. The pressed caught on because we pushed it very hard with the press. The new way of gaming, the new way of playing an actual IP into the next-gen consoles is that nobody else had attempt it. This is the first ever completely hand-drawn game.”

The three former Capcom employees had decided to leave Capcom USA because they felt that Capcom of Japan had started to take too much control with the U.S. branch, and thus leaving them with less freedom on how to localize the games.

O~3 Entertainment’s 2005 lineup:

Resonance (Developer: Neocell Factory)
Platform(s): X-Box, and Undetermined
Release Date: TBA

Steven Hosey: “So now what we’re doing is that we also got about seven new titles for the consoles which we’re going to debut. One of them is Resonance. The key platform is yet to be determined but it’s kind of like the Inquisition meets Resident Evil . You play a witch who has special powers and is on the search to find out why the Catholic church is having an Inquisition. During that time she finds out that there is a bunch of bigger-evil presence behind all the torture and execution. Thus, beginning her mission to save the world.”

Story: “During “the Renaissance,” what one believes is blurred and uncertain and saying the wrong words may end your life. Inquisition hunted witch Faye Wynter is trying to discover the meaning behind her special powers and her part in the events that may change the world.”

As for the gameplay, the developers describe it as a mix of survival horror, action and RPG. The game has storyline and character development elements of an RPG, “the mood and immersion of a survival horror,” and a fighting system that is as detailed as an action game. Faye Wynter also posses a unique ability called “the Resonance,” which the developers say will be “an integral part of the gameplay.”

When Resonance was originally announced, the developers mentioned that it would be for all three of the current consoles. The latest update on their site however, says that currently, the game is only in development for the X-Box. GCN and PS2 owners, keep your fingers crossed.

AMN: “Will O~3 Entertainment be bringing out games for the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP?”

Steven Hosey: “Yes, we will be. There are a couple titles (part of the seven mentioned earlier) we can’t speak about just yet that will be coming out either very late fall or early next year.”

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Pocket Dogs (Developer: Agatsuma Entertainment)
Platform: Nintendo GameBoy Advance 2005,
Release Date: TBA

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Pocket Dogs (tentative title) (Developer: To be revealed)
Platform: Nintendo DS
Release Date: TBA

Steven Hosey: “The next title we have is called Pocket Dogs for the GameBoy Advance. It’s a game slash simulation with the popular Hana Deka Club license in Japan. The Hana Deka Club is famous for the picture of dogs that are shot through fisheye lenses making the heads much larger than their bodies. So what they’ve done is they’ve taken the actual photographs that are famous in Japan and here in the U.S. and animated them. So you can talk to you dog, you can feed your dog, make it dig up bones in your dog, etc. It’s pretty much a true to life simulation of having a real dog except for the fact that it talks to you.”

Pocket Dogs (GBA) also has an in game clock system (not concurrent with real-time) that keeps track of the last time you fed or played with your dog(s). The Nintendo DS version however, (set for a future release) will have an internal clock system that corresponds to the real-time, similar to the one used in Animal Crossing.

AMN: “With Nintendogs coming out soon, will O~3 be releasing Pocket Dogs around the same time as Nintendogs?”

Steven Hosey: “It would be ideal from a marketing standpoint to release at the same time because the titles are somewhat similar. Although Nintendogs is just for the DS. The DS fan-base is still growing but there are a lot of GBAs out there. So if a consumer hasn’t bought a DS just yet, Pocket Dogs is a great alternative and it’s a great game on its own as well.”

AMN: “Will you also be able to trade dogs with other players too?”

Steven Hosey: “No, unfortunately it’s only a one-player game. The next version that we’re working on right now for the DS will have some multi-player compatibility in it. In the GBA version however, you have the option of raising eight different dogs. Basically you enter a pet store and you’re able to pick them. I think it’s initially four dogs, when you’ve raised them successfully you’ll be able to get other different kinds of dogs.”

Chaos Field (Developer: Milestone)
Platform: Nintendo GameCube
Release Date: October 2005 (Subject to Change)

Steven Hosey: “We also have Chaos Field (GCN exclusive), which is a rail-shooter that people are pretty familiar with. This is the latest version. It’s not the Dreamcast port. It’s a brand new title. We have that coming out in September and a couple of things we can’t yet talk about for the new platforms.”

Originally appearing on the Dreamcast in December 2004 (Japan only). This vertical-scrolling single-player shooter is developed by Milestone, and was ported and released on the GCN in February 2005 in Japan. The GameCube port, Chaos Field Expended, added a high-score saving feature as well as an all-new Original Mode. For the U.S. release O~3 Entertainment will be using a brand-new cover art.

In Chaos Field, players will have two-fields to play in called “Order” and “Chaos” respectively. “Order Field” is essentially the normal mode of play, but players will be able to switch between Order and Chaos at anytime. In “Chaos Field” a red-tint fills the screen and the enemies shower you with infinitely many bullets. There is an incentive to switch to Chaos Field though as players will deal more damage to enemies in the “Chaos Field.” Players will also be able to use a sword weapon to clear most types bullets and hurt enemies, although you cannot shoot and slash at the same time. This will only be the Nintendo Gamecube’s 2nd (Xevious in Star Fox Assault does not count) vertical-scrolling shooter-type game that’s released in North America (Ikaruga being the first).

AMN: “How much will Chaos Field retail for?”

Steven Hosey: “We’re not sure right now because we’re still working out the contract, but I know it’ll be no higher than $29.99.”

AMN: “Will there be any new additions to the U.S. release?”

Steven Hosey: “It’ll be fully localized in English. I believe they are tying to work on a couple more levels, but I’m not sure they will be able to make it in because we know that the team is also moving on to new projects. We’re still trying to find that out for Japan”.

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Regarding Alien Hominid ( Developer: The Behemoth)
Platforms: Nintendo GameCube, Sony Playstation 2

Originally made as a single-player flash game for download in 2002 (Which can be found at the Newgrounds website), with over 6 million downloads, Alien Hominid is one of the most downloaded games of all time. An updated version of Alien Hominid was released for the GCN and PS2 in November 2004. Alien Hominid is a 2-D shooter similar to Metal Slug and Contra . The console version allowed for 1-2 players to play in the main game and 1-4 players to play in the PDA mini-games. This finely crafted hand-drawn 2-D shooter was well received by the press and won the “Open Audience” Category Award at IGFA (Independent Games Festivals Awards). An X-Box version of Alien Hominid was also released in Europe with some added X-Box Live features, but O~3 currently has no plans to release the X-Box version to North America. A GBA version is also in development but the North American publisher is still unknown.

AMN: “How are the sales for Alien Hominid ?”

Steven Hosey: “The sales are doing great. It’s what we expected. It’s a brand new franchise and generally in mid to the end of the life cycle of a platform, it’s not the mega-hit that a lot of people were expecting in the form of a brand new franchise. The game has a great fan-base. Sales are great and we’ve reordered products several times. The game has just dropped to $19.99 and so we’ve just seen sales quadruple on some accounts at Gamestop and EB. So , the games taking off again.”

AMN: “Which platform is it selling best for?”

Steven Hosey: “The GameCube, surprisingly enough. I think it’s because there’s no other game experience like Alien Hominid for the GameCube, so it’s a very unique thing. It’s great for Nintendo. Nintendo has been a great supporter for us.”

O~3 Entertainment and Next-Gen

AMN: “With Next-Generation consoles coming out next year (X-Box in 2005), can we still expect more titles from you guys for the GCN and PS2?”

Steven Hosey: “Definitely. That’s another thing that shows are we’re different from the other publishers. Most of the other publishers are concentrating on next-gen with being the first out to market and being there at launch. But you know with millions and millions of consoles out there, the consumers will still be looking for last-gen games. So we’ll definitely be looking to bring games out well into 2007 for the current platforms. This last generation of consoles was the best we’ve seen and the best software libraries. There’s a lot of development teams out there still working on games that can’t be ported to new systems so we would love to give them that chance to come out and stretch their legs.”

AMN: “Even though O~3 will still be bringing out titles for GCN and PS2, is O~3 already licensed to publish titles for next-gen?”

Steven Hosey: “Actually we’ve just spoke to Nintendo and they’re still working on everyone’s PLA (Publisher Licensing Agreement), so I don’t think anyone right now has a confirmed license to work on the Revolution. As for the X-Box 360 and PS3, I’m sure that our PLAs will transfer onto the new consoles.”

With the current focus of many other publishers looking only to put out mainstream big-budget type of games, many smaller developers with good unique ideas often get over-looked. O~3 Entertainment’s focus on putting out and promoting underdog titles such as Alien Hominid and Chaos Field is certainly a welcome. While O~3 Entertainment may be a new name in the industry, their staff members are plenty experienced, as O~3’s staff consists of ex-staff members from both Capcom USA and Namco USA. The one-year anniversary of O~3 Entertainment is coming up soon and we at Advanced Media Network wish them the best of luck in the industry.