Hi everybody. It's Takenaka, Wangan programmer, here.

The price of gas is going up all over the world just now, right? I guess that in times like these we've got to try and conserve gas by cutting down on driving a bit.

It's a pretty depressing story (forced smile). Anyway, on a more positive note ...

Today I thought a little about the future of driving games.

The thing which most concerns me is the changing tastes of game players.
People's tastes and fashions change with the times.
What sort of games, and what sort of cars, will be popular in the future?

It's probably fair to say that the lifeline of any driving game is the feeling of maneuvering the car.
That has the most direct connection to things like how much fun it is to drive, and the excitement of battling around a circuit.

Of course, the feeling of maneuvering vehicles or characters is also important in other kinds of game genres, but it is particularly critical in driving games.

To try and create a realistic maneuvering feeling in the Wangan Maxi Series, I developed and used a vehicle behavior engine called "Enma".

I naturally hope that the Wangan Series continues long into the future, but I wonder what sort of maneuvering feeling there will be in driving games in the future???
And, what sort of work will I be doing when those games come out ...?

I expect I'll still be making improvements to Enma.
Either that, or I'll be working on some other game development technique altogether.
Or, maybe, I'll be doing some totally different part of the game development process, and somebody else will be working on the maneuvering feeling ...?

I wonder if driving games will be as popular then as they are now ...

.... goes without saying that I hope they are!

I really hope, as both a game developer and a game fan, that all games, not just driving games, will continue to hold a special place in all your hearts.

... well that's my impromptu ponderings about the future finished for today, so I guess it's time to get back to work!
Back to real life (forced smile yet again), time to start my toil once again, here I go ...

See you later!

(Original article in Japanese released on 6.11.2008)