Would you like to release DLC free of charge?
AM It’s definitely under consideration. [The decision’s] not 100 per cent ours but it’s certainly not out of the question.

You started Among Thieves right after you finished Drake’s Fortune. Are you going to be starting a third game in the series soon?
JR We’re always thinking about new Drake stuff but right now the big thing people will be working on is tech stuff like correcting the code base for whatever we work on next, whether it’s Uncharted 3 or something else. There are definitely things that we discovered along the way with this game that we can do better next game, things that we didn’t have time to do this game that we can put into the code. The little tiny tech projects that would be awesome to put into a game are getting worked on now, but whether they go into Uncharted 3 or something else is to be determined.



Have you had a chance to check out Sony’s upcoming motion sensing controller at Naughty Dog?
JR I’ve seen the tech demos but we don’t have any in-house yet. Christophe and Evan have seen it, along with the ICE Team who work on the technology side. But it terms of what we’re working on we haven’t played with it at all. It looks pretty awesome though.

You must have been pretty pleased with the recent PS3 price cut.
JR We’d been hoping for a price cut for forever, just as fans of the PS3, but obviously we got really lucky. I think Christophe and Evan knew but nobody else knew anything about it. And with the [Uncharted 2] bundles it’s a pretty big win for us. We want to push PS3 as much as we possibly can. It’s an awesome machine and we believe in it really strongly, so price cuts or whatever gets it into people’s hands is what we want.

The mid-September release of the game seems very well timed too. Was it the launch timeframe you always had planned?
JR Actually it was pretty close. We finished pretty much when we wanted to. It was a tough slog at the end but we got it done and I think the release date had pretty much been set in stone for a long time. Basically we got lucky as Halo 3: ODST was before us, Modern Warfare is after us and we’re right in between them. It certainly wasn’t planned that way but that’s how it worked out.

What expectations do you hold for the game sales-wise?
AM We’d love to grow the franchise - that’s the bottom line. No matter what you do it’s always very difficult to grow from one game to another. And that‘s what our milestone is. If we can do better than we did with the previous game then we’re set.

Do you have any theory about why so many titles have been delayed from late 2009 to next year?
JR I’m totally speculating here but I think it’s one of those things where games have ballooned. As development has gotten longer and games have become more complex I think the industry still hasn’t figured out how long it takes to make these things. We got lucky with Uncharted to have as many good people as we do. We were certainly pushing it really hard and it took a lot of work to get it out on time. In one sense delays are a good thing for the fans because it means that the games that come out are going to be a lot stronger than they would be otherwise.

I think now you’re seeing publishers making the decision not to just shovel games out because if they’re not good people aren’t going to buy them. And the competition is really strong. There are a lot of really good games now. Modern Warfare 2’s fantastic, ODST’s fantastic, even Brutal Legend. I can’t wait to play Assassin’s Creed 2 as well. I think it just happened that a lot of games were in a bad place and had to get pushed. I don’t think anybody’s scared of the competition. I think if people wanted to get games out before Christmas they could have done so but they wouldn’t have been as strong. It makes for the most interesting first quarter of a year ever. I’m just glad we’re not in with those guys.