Mizuguchi On Life After Sega, Rez Pseudo-Sequels

Thanks to GameSpot for its interview with Space Channel 5 and Rez creator Tetsuya Mizuguchi, held on the final day of last week's GDC show. As for his future projects, he seems in no hurry to reveal anything, mentioning: "Well, it's been about six months since I left Sega... I think we'll be able to make an announcement [about new projects] at E3 or maybe next year." But he does indicate: "I think my next game will be for the PSP or Nintendo DS", and when asked if it would be a sequel to Rez, suggests: "In my mind, yes. But I won't use the Rez name because that belongs to Sega."

Comments

Seems dangerous

[hambonewilkins]

"In my mind, yes. But I won't use the Rez name because that belongs to Sega."

Does anyone else hear Sega's lawyers ears perking up? He's basically saying he's going to circumvent copyright/trademark law (no, I'm not a lawyer) because they own the name but he wants to do a sequel. Good for him, but I certainly wouldn't speak about it in public.

It would be like the producers of a movie saying "we wanted to make a James Bond movie but couldn't get the rights from MGM so we just made a slightly different one." Remember the Goldmember controversy?

Re:Seems dangerous

[josh glaser]

I think the grandparent is a little off here. I don't think Monolith called Xenosaga "Xenosaga" because Square wouldn't let them call it Xenogears. They called it that because it was a different game in the same series. The "Xeno" in the title makes them easily recognizable as that, and I don't think they wanted to call it "Xenogears II." Especially because Xenogears is actually Part V in the Xeno story, and Xenosaga is Part I. (What would they call Xenosaga then? Xenogears -4?) Other popular RPGs do this too...Chrono Trigger/Chrono Cross, SaGa Whatever, etc. They probably just didn't want to create confusion by naming a prequel like a sequel. Also, if Square owned the name Xenogears and wouldn't let them use it, and they used the name Xenosaga, well, the names are similair enough so Square could sue them anyway. I mean, making a prequel to somebody else's game probably isn't that smart either - which is why I'm pretty sure they had the rights to all the Xenogears stuff.

Re:"In my mind, yes"

[shadowcabbit]

Even though he's already made two sequels (Sega Rally 2 and Space Channel 5 Part 2)?

We can't fault Mizuguchi if those were made as a result of Sega's decisions and not his own (ie he didn't propose the sequels, but Sega put him in charge of them).

I actually would welcome a new Rez-like game. The original was mind-blowing, but it was too short because it was limited by the Dreamcast's disc space. Give Mizuguchi the chance to do close to the same thing with a dual-layer DVD (and, by extension, better audio compression tools)-- and that'd be the one game I'd put a pre-order on the import for.

Another poster weighed in on if Sega had the copyright on the name and style... I think that there're plenty of ways you could do the same thing as Rez, but still get away with it. On the other hand, I doubt that Sega would begrudge Mizuguchi the opportunity to keep working on one of his most beloved games. (witness what happened with Xenogears/Xenosaga and Square Enix/Monolith Soft-- same basic dilemma)