We would like to personally thank everyone over at Insomniac for entertaining our request and taking time out of their schedule to answer our questions. A great big ball of appreciation is going out to Ted Price, Brian Allgeier, Jonathan Garrett, and Brian Hastings, who all contributed answers to the following questions.

I would also like to personally thank Mary Rust and Ryan Schneider at Insomniac for taking the time and effort to facilitate our request and taking care of the details.

Thanks to everyone over at Insomniac for all of their hard work in gaming. It's developers like Insomniac that really show what this industry is capable of when people truly treat their craft as the art form that it is.

Q: What is your overall impression of the current state of console gaming?

A: Ted Price, President/CEO — Console gaming is at its strongest ever. If you look at the installed base for consoles of this generation, the numbers are incredible — somewhere around 100 million. And if you add consoles from the last generation (like PlayStation) that are still active, it's easy to see why console gaming systems show up in well over half of the homes in the US. Furthermore, gamers have an amazing array of games to choose from on each console — it's a great time to be playing games.

From a developer's perspective, console gaming is where you want to be. The top 50 games on consoles absolutely destroy the top 50 on PC in terms of sales. And console game sales continue to grow each year while the PC games market is fairly stagnant. The only drawback to the success console games enjoy is a) there is a LOT of competition in the market, b) console games are very expensive to create and c) the price for console games has remained stable for years while development budgets increase. This means that existing as a console game maker can be a very risky business.

Q: The staggering improvement in the sequel to Ratchet and Clank compared to the original is something most developers can't even dream of doing. How did Insomniac manage such a feat so soon after the release of the original? Did you have to sell souls or make some other underworld deals?

A: Brian Allgeier, Design Director — There were a few ritual sacrifices. One of the great things about working on the first Ratchet and Clank was that it generated its own momentum. We saw all of the worlds, characters, and gameplay come together to become something greater than what we had imagined — and that was very exciting. This momentum carried over into Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando and at that point we had fully hit our stride.

Many of the core concepts were developed during the first game, which gave us a head start. Having a larger staff with many new ideas helped in making the leap to what we felt was more than just a "sequel." Also, after witnessing the success of the first game, we were willing to take more risks.

It certainly was not easy. But I think that the success of Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando is due to many experienced and talented people working on a game that they enjoy creating and would ultimately want to play.

Q: We have all heard the complaints about the PS2 hardware. What are you doing differently at Insomniac that seems to tap into hardware potential that most others seem to miss?

A: Jonathan Garrett, Engine Programmer — When programming for the PS2 it's very important to not try and fight the hardware (it always wins!)

Our rendering engine is comprised of a number of individual renderers (to handle the different background elements, characters and various effects), each one being highly optimized for its particular task. Our environments make use of a level-of-detail system that ensures that time isn't wasted drawing unnecessary geometry.

Pretty much all of our core engine is written in hand-optimized assembly language - under certain circumstances the main CPU can execute two instructions at the same time, by programming at such a low level, we can take advantage of this as much as possible. Also, we try to make as much use of the PS2's separate processors as we can - by running these at the same time, we get to overlap work and effectively can do multiple things at the same time.

Q: Your friendly working relationship with other developers (notably Naughty Dog) seems to reap incredible benefits. Do you feel this just a unique situation or do you feel more developers should work together like this?

A: Ted Price, President/CEO — We aren't the only ones who share ideas and code but I think it's fairly rare to see developers share as openly as Insomniac and Naughty Dog do. It's hard not to get caught up in the competitive nature of this business — I mean, why give someone else an advantage that may help them catch up to you? What's often difficult to remember is that most developers have very unique strengths and when two or more band together, the sum can be much greater than the parts.

But it's not just about sharing code or comparing designs — we're fortunate to have great relationships with a lot of other developers (Oddworld, Suckerpunch, Bioware, Day 1 Studios, among others) which leads to shared advice, contacts, etc. The development community is very small and we can all benefit if we talk more frequently. Whether that leads to more "intimate" sharing really depends on the situation.

Q: How do you feel about the release schedules for game now? It seems companies still concentrate mostly on the holiday season for obvious reasons, however do you think the industry might be mature enough to withstand a more robust game selection year round?

A: Ted Price, President/CEO — I don't think it's a question of whether the industry is mature enough. I think our release schedules are really based on consumer buying habits. The majority of consumer purchases every year is made in November and December. So that means if you have a well-promoted game those months, you've got a chance to sell a lot of units.

On the other hand, we're seeing big releases now throughout the year. BUT when you compare the sales for the top 10 games in any month, November and December rule. In reality, I think most of the "big" games that come out in the first or second quarters have actually slipped their ship dates and were originally intended for Christmas release.

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