Entrevista a Zen Studios
Preguntamos a Neil Sorens, Director Creativo de Zen Studios, acerca de Wii U y del futuro de Zen Pinball 3D
RG: Please, introduce yourself
Neil: Hi, I’m Neil Sorens, the Creative Director from Zen Studios.
RG: You guys are experts in pinball games. In your opinion, what’s the current state of pinball? Is it a dying breed?
Neil: Oh, no, it’s making a comeback, actually, with our games and [Farsight Studio’s] Pinball Arcade, which has been released on a bunch of different platforms. I know [Pinball Arcade] has been very successful on mobile platforms. They’ve just released the game in handhelds and consoles, and I think they’re doing pretty well. Our game was also the number one game in Xbox Live Arcade last year, so I think pinball is really making a comeback.
The reason why [Pinball] kind of faltered in the late 90s and early 2000s was that people didn’t want to go to an arcade and put in 50 cents per game of three balls, it wasn’t a good enough value proposition for them. Nowadays they can just log on on their console and download a game or extra Pinball tables for two or three dollars a piece, which makes a lot more of sense for them, so we’ve bringing a lot of new fans to pinball and that makes us happy.
RG: There are some DLC tables for the PC version of Zen Pinball. Will the 3DS see those extra tables?
Neil: Yes, definitely. We’re just waiting for the right time to add the support for add-on content for Zen Pinball. It will be definitely available this year. We’re going to have new tables for Zen Pinball, we’ll also release Marvel Pinball [for the 3DS, PS Vita and PC] and we’ll have add-on tables for that as well down the road.
RG: Now that you talk about Marvel Pinball… You’ve made some tables based on other licenses. Would you like to create a Nintendo based table?
Neil: Yes, definitely. We’d love to make Mario, Zelda or Pokémon pinball tables. Nintendo is obviously very protective of their Intellectual Properties, so we hoping that once our games become established on their platforms they’ll see us as a good potential partner and they’ll want to work with us.
RG: Since you’re a pinball expert, what did you think about Metroid Prime Pinball and Pokémon Pinball?
Neil: I haven’t played Pokémon Pinball, but I thought Metroid Prime Pinball was great. Those guys also did Pinball Pulse on DSi, and that’s a fantastic game that everyone should check out as well.
RG: Will Zen Studios work in the future in something besides pinball games?
Neil: We’re already working on some other games besides pinball that we will be announcing a little bit later. One of them will be coming to the 3DS, one won’t (at least not initially). We’re very excited, we’ll announce them… Sometime this year, I can’t say more than that!
RG: Maybe at E3?
Neil: We don’t actually announce that much stuff at E3 just because there’s such a number of announcements from other guys that we wouldn’t be getting any kind of attention. We’ll make our announcements when anyone else is making announcements *laughs*.
RG: One last question: Have you thought about using the Wii U controller for a pinball game? With its triggers and its accelerometers it looks like a good fit.
Neil: Well, the new Wii U controller is… very good for pinball, actually. I can’t talk you much more than that right now but yeah, I agree that it would be pretty cool for pinball *laughs*.
Interview made by Fare Godmace y José Manuél Bringas