The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Interview

GameSpot has published a two-page interview with Bethesda’s Todd Howard, in which the executive producer shares some general information about the upcoming fourth installment in the Elder Scrolls series, Oblivion. Here’s a taste:

Q: Morrowind was a game that appeared on the Xbox as well as the PC, and now Oblivion will appear on the Xbox 360 and the PC. What lessons did you learn while making the Xbox version of Morrowind that you applied to Oblivion, or in a larger sense, either developing for consoles in general or developing for two different platforms in general? Will there be any tangible difference between the PC and Xbox 360 versions of the game, aside from interface tweaks to optimize each version to each platform?

A: We learned a lot and took those lessons when we started Oblivion. When working with a console, you really have to be careful with memory allocations and pay a lot more attention to streamlining the whole code base. As far as difference between versions, our plan is to have the same game regardless of platform, but there will obviously be differences in terms of interfaces.