A portion of an NES interview with Former Factor 5 employee Albert Chen ...
NES: What was the relationship like between Factor 5 and Nintendo through the years? In 2003, when Rebel Strike was being shown at E3, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto said Factor 5 was working closely with Nintendo on another game for GameCube. All of a sudden, Factor 5 moved on to work on Lair for PlayStation 3 with Sony publishing it. What forced Factor 5 to leave that project to work on Lair?
AC: Factor 5 had a very good relationship with Nintendo until the Gamecube started losing the console wars to the PS2 and Xbox. There were some discussions about working with Miyamoto, but most of the dev team was in the dark. I wasn’t privy to the financial negotiations between Factor 5 and Sony, but I’m guessing that it all came to money and leveraging off the success of the PS2 and the high expectations of what the PS3 was going to be able to do (at that time).
NES: Nintendo has a virtual console service for the Wii and Wii U where you can play older games from past consoles, including the Nintendo 64. When the Wii U comes out, would you like to see Factor 5′s N64 games on the service? Also, would you like to see Nintendo make GameCube games available on the service when Wii U launches so a new generation of gamers can play Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike?
AC: Absolutely! I would love to have a whole new generation of gamers play the games that we worked so hard on. I’d love to see a 3D version of RS2 on the 3DS. How cool would that be?!!!!!
Full interview here
NES: What was the relationship like between Factor 5 and Nintendo through the years? In 2003, when Rebel Strike was being shown at E3, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto said Factor 5 was working closely with Nintendo on another game for GameCube. All of a sudden, Factor 5 moved on to work on Lair for PlayStation 3 with Sony publishing it. What forced Factor 5 to leave that project to work on Lair?
AC: Factor 5 had a very good relationship with Nintendo until the Gamecube started losing the console wars to the PS2 and Xbox. There were some discussions about working with Miyamoto, but most of the dev team was in the dark. I wasn’t privy to the financial negotiations between Factor 5 and Sony, but I’m guessing that it all came to money and leveraging off the success of the PS2 and the high expectations of what the PS3 was going to be able to do (at that time).
NES: Nintendo has a virtual console service for the Wii and Wii U where you can play older games from past consoles, including the Nintendo 64. When the Wii U comes out, would you like to see Factor 5′s N64 games on the service? Also, would you like to see Nintendo make GameCube games available on the service when Wii U launches so a new generation of gamers can play Rogue Leader and Rebel Strike?
AC: Absolutely! I would love to have a whole new generation of gamers play the games that we worked so hard on. I’d love to see a 3D version of RS2 on the 3DS. How cool would that be?!!!!!
Categories: Consoles, Portables, Interviews | Tags: 3DS, Wii, N64, Virtual Console, GameCube | Rating: 
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I hope you guys enjoy this interview with Albert Chen. I appreciate that he let us have the time to ask him a few questions. Lots of interesting tidbits of information in the interview.
I would download Rogue Leader on Wii U in a heartbeat! That was the game that made me excited for Gamecube, not Luigi's Really Short Mansion. Rogue Leader was the launch game the cool kids got.
By the way, great avatar Emily. I loves me some Coraline.
Thanks! I really liked that movie (and stop motion animation in general).
And I agree, I remember Rogue Leader being the game I wanted most for GameCube's launch. It was a great game to show off the GameCube's graphics to people. I had also bought Luigi's Mansion and Wave Race: Blue Storm on launch day as well.
Translation: We got really cocky after all the good press we had as a GC developer, we voiced our annoyance on EGM about the Wii's shortcomings and we spent a ton of money on lair realizing that a good game can be good anywhere. We are not making games anymore, may we rest in pieces.
Please remind Mr Julian Eggebrecht there is still a law suit to take care of.
PS: The two RS games are the only two games using bump mapping on the Gamecube and they still look amazing even today so I kinda understand their need to work with the latest tech possible, then again, the Xbox was superior to the GC, but it was not their platform of choice.
"Were third parties lazy in pushing the Wii’s graphical abilities, and what could they have learned from Factor 5′s games on GameCube?
I can’t really speak for other developers, but I’m guessing that it all comes down to economics. Unless you were a first party, launch title or established sequel, you couldn’t really justify spending too much on development because you were not likely to sell very many units."
Without AAA quality most buyers wouldn't even pay attention and if you want to establish a new IP with sequels, you can't start with poor or mediocre quality!
McDaniel-77
@McDaniel-77 yeah, I stopped buying most 3rd party Wii games because they hardly put any effort into them. 3rd parties stop putting effort into Wii games because they expected the games to sell well regardless of quality because of the install base.
The bottom line is Julian Eggebrecht got greedy, had to play with the new shiny (PS3), and decided Factor 5 could polish a turd and it would sell. Well guess what?? Factor 5 is yet another developer than abandoned Nintendo that is either dead or making Nick Toon games...
As strange as it sounds this is all too true.
in their defense, they weren't the only one to be lured by the promises of those platforms . They chose badly , and should have diversified and keep a nintendo connection . But going with that reply for third parties on wii , well they are quite a bit full of themselves and probably still think nintendo deserved no credit for their games and success. Being such a great technician and just spouting industry myth without mentioning the other possible reasons.
but yeah they should definitely with the magic of paying owed salaries , release rs3 on 3ds . Or something really an eshop game just to show off their skills .
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