Peter Jackson establishes games development studio for Xbox

By Steve Malone

Posted on 29 Sep 2006 at 10:43

Peter Jackson, the Oscar-winning director behind the 'Lord of the Rings' trilogy and the monster 'King Kong' remake, is to establish his own games studio based in his native New Zealand. Wingnut Interactive Studio will develop new games titles for Microsoft's Xbox 360 console.

Jackson already has a relationship with Microsoft as the executive producer for the upcoming 'Halo' film, based on the Microsoft-owned Bungie Studio's top selling game franchise. Wingnut's first project is to deliver a so far un-named new game based on the Halo franchise sometime in 2008. Microsoft has already announced Halo 3 for the Xbox which is due next year.

By creating his own games studio, Jackson is following in the footsteps of other such film luminaries as George Lucas who created LucasArts to develop games based on the blockbuster Star Wars mythology.

Jackson has plans to develop the games platform to be more a kind of interactive movie. Speaking at Microsoft's European X06 event in Barcelona, he said, 'My vision, together with Microsoft Game Studios, is to push the boundaries of game development and the future of interactive entertainment. From a moviemaker's point of view, it is clear to me that the Xbox 360 platform is the stage where storytellers can work their craft in the same way they do today with movies and books but taking it further with interactivity'.

What Jackson seems to be saying is to create a film but with interactive elements. If so, this approach has been tried before. Over the years a number of games have used intercut film-like story sequences and real actors with adventure style interaction with the characters and the inevitable shoot 'em up interludes. However, they have generally been held back by the technology which has tended to suspend the gameplay while the next scene is loaded from the CD. It will be interesting whether Jackson and the Xbox 360 platform can truly deliver a hybrid interactive movie.