Namco Bandai's Keita Takahashi is the creative genius behind Katamari Damacy and enfant adorable of the games world. Outspoken, iconoclastic and endearingly humble he's always ready to take on the industry, and usually with counter-intuitive views.
In his keynote speech at the recent GameCity festival in Nottingham the barefoot developer discussed world pollution, environmental responsibilities and why games are a luxury. "If you're suffering from poverty and disease could you worry about collecting coins? I don't think so," he said.
CVG bagged an exclusive interview with the designer to find out more about his latest title, Noby Noby Boy, what irritates him about the industry and why he may be moving on from Namco-Bandai in 2009.
Keita Takahashi says he has ideas for new Katamari Damacy games…
Well that sucks to see. Maybe it'd be easier to work with Bandai Namco in their home country, at least.
Some of the Katamari games have been great but lets face it, the concept is done now and new entries are just milking it.
You've inspired him. His new game will be about a princess who has to undo all the horrible work her brother did. You must unroll all these things and put them back in their place. Thank you for your words of inspiration!
That sucks for him 🥺 maybe he could make a spiritual successor of he finds a publisher?
The early 2000s was a crazy, weird time of defeating dystopias with karate, sending texts via Microsoft Excel, and ignoring your pets so you could look at jpegs of pets. As its adverts might have suggested, the PlayStation 2 was no stranger to getting a little bit freaky either.
..that article /list is only scratching on the surface of the weirdness on ps2. There are way more obscure games on that console.
I would go alone with SOME on this list but a few arent even exclusive.. in fact the PS2 version of GIANTS is an after-thought and considered bastardized compared to the PC version.
Katamari Damacy is a real joy of a game that feels a lot more optimistically about us than some of us might realize.
NAnan nanana nanaaaaa Katamari Damachiiiii
Man, I love this game! still have my PS2 version :)
Why not just leave N/B and find a way to start up yourself an independent studio?
anyways.
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Everyone is saying how imaginative the Nintendo Wii is. Do you agree?
Takahashi: No [laughs]. I do understand the concept and the fun aspect but I do feel that there's still more to explore with a traditional control method.
^^
You don't always need a remote/joystick to make creative games. there were creative games using regular old controllers :)