BioWare - Interview @ IndustryGamers

IndustryGamers has a new interview with the Biodocs, which essentially serves as a general marketing platform for them.  Here's the only interesting snip I can see:

IG: Yeah, and, of course, he mentioned the BioWare games. Whether it's BioWare, or Lionhead, or Bethesda, the Western RPG makers really seem to have stolen the thunder of the Japanese developers. I’m just curious about what your thoughts are on the Japanese RPGs and what’s going on between East versus West. 

Greg Zeschuk: Well, it’s interesting. I think in the past year we saw a very interesting counterpoint to that argument, which was Demon’s Souls. That title was, in my mind, probably one of the most innovative RPGs/games in ages. So, there’s still flashes of brilliance, obviously, and I think… I haven’t played Final Fantasy XIII yet, but obviously I hear a lot of how they’ve gone a very different direction than one they’ve traditionally gone: much more streamlined, which is interesting. So, I think what happened is they got very complacent for a very long time. They kept making the same thing, and the same thing, and, in a sense, almost provided an opening for all of us to jump in with our style of games. I know first hand that they’re looking at our games now; they’re kind of looking at our stuff, the Fable stuff, and Fallout, and all that, and going, “what are these things?” I think they had gotten used to making the same thing over and over, and it was working. I think the other thing, too, is that the Japanese market has gotten quite a bit weaker and weaker. It’s just not as strong a market. It used to be a tremendously strong game market, so I think they’re kind of looking at it going, “man, we’ve got to figure out where else we can sell these,” and I think the traditional, very structured, old-school structure RPG wasn’t selling anymore; so now, I think we’re going to see some changes. I think Final Fantasy XIII, you know, I can’t say first hand... but I know definitely Demon’s Souls was a very, very different direction than any Japanese RPG I’d seen before.