The older we get, the more we here at Level Up believe that everything happens for a reason. In January, we spoke with Game Developers Conference executive director Jamil Moledina in our New York offices. During the intervening weeks, we fully intended to transcribe the interview so that we could post excerpts on the blog, but things kept getting in the way. But on our flight to San Francisco for GDC, we reviewed the notes from our chat with Moledina, and realized that it still held up extraordinarily well--and that it would be perfect timing to begin posting the interview today. In Part I of our three-part Q&A, Moledina talks about the parallels between the iPhone and the Wii, defends the game industry from our charge that their user interfaces are an afterthought and discusses the sessions at this week's conference. (Note: some of the information in the interview was embargoed at the time of the interview in January, but said embargo has since been lifted.)

It's never as good the second time, but you were relating a funny story about the iPhone before I turned on my digital audio recorder.

I was exchanging an email with Sibel [Sunar] and some of her team at our PR agency, fortyseven communications. You know how when you send a message from your BlackBerry, at the bottom of the message, it says "Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device"? I was at my desk, where I could actually affect the signature block, so I copied that, and replaced BlackBerry with iPhone. I had just seen the keynote and I was very jazzed about it. And someone from Sibel's staff emails back and says, "Wow, are you serious? Do you really have an iPhone?" I was still in a glib mood, and I replied, "I didn't know it was sending the signature block like that. That's interesting." So I didn't actually deny it. [Laughs.] Because you don't know what the BlackBerry is sending as its signature when you send it on the road. Then it gets around to Alan Yu over at EA--he's the former GDC director--and he says to Sibel--what did he say?

Publicist: He said, "Did you see Jamil's iPhone?" And I said, "Yes, it looked a lot like a BlackBerry." [Laughs.]

I guess a little bit of mischief goes a long way in the Internet age.

And what do you think of the iPhone?

I think it's a spectacular device. The remarkable thing is that Apple has succeeded in combining three separate devices into something that people are clamoring to use, that they will find has a user interface that is compelling to them. It's the kind of thing that Apple does phenomenally well. They have the ability to capture the public fascination with gadgets and have an implementation that is relatively flawless. People now really understand that. From 1984 to 2001--two very important dates to me as a science fiction fan--also happen to be the dates that the Mac and the iPod were introduced. So for that whole long period, few people understood that interface between hardware and software that Apple did spectacularly well. The iPod broadened it out to a whole new audience. So I think the public has a much greater sense now of how well it can work when you blend hardware and software in a near-flawless execution.

Do you see any parallels between what Apple has done so far with the premiering of the iPhone and what Nintendo has done with the Wii?

I think there's a very strong correlation. The parallels between what Apple does with its iPod and now iPhone and what Nintendo does with its DS and Wii are very striking. They've both created devices that are aesthetically pleasing--speaking of the DS Lite, specifically--and also a very close blend of how the software works and the platform that it runs on. When Wii Sports debuted, people in the industry kind of knew what it was leading up to the release of the platform, but after that--we're fairly familiar with the response from consumers, but what happened with developers was phenomenal. They were astounded. They were playing with their children, with their families; a very similar story to what we've all heard from the main consumer sector. The interesting thing is that it's not actually the traditional, bounded, cozy $11 billion gamer audience that we typically talk about in the game industry. It's a much broader audience. The ability to bring in new people who may not otherwise have an interest in games is a phenomenal thing that Nintendo has accomplished.

That is one of the parallels with Apple. Bringing in people that might not otherwise want to have a music player with them wherever they go. It's become something that has a life of its own, beyond the sum of its parts.

You've spoken about the relevance of what Apple's done to the platform side of the game industry. What do you think the lessons of the iPhone are for game developers? I know that it's a hardware device, but what should game developers take away from what Apple has done with the iPhone and its other consumer products?

It's a difficult question, because the iPhone is a closed platform. And most developers are looking to work with open platforms. The DS, the PSP and the three new-generation consoles are all accessible to developers in some way or another. The lesson of the iPhone is probably best heard by the platform manufacturers who have the ability to blend hardware and software seamlessly in that fashion. I think we are seeing the lessons of that come to life. For example, Xbox Live Arcade on the Xbox platform, and their recent introduction of television and movie downloads into a single device that, lo and behold, is already in many people's living rooms. So I think you are seeing the lessons being learned. It's just that Apple is the master of this. They're ahead of the game. So they can introduce a spectacular device, like the iPhone. But as you know, they had to do an announcement before the release of the device. So this is new for Apple. It's uncharted territory for them. The only other example I can think of for them was the Apple TV, which was only a couple of months before. They're tipping their hand a little earlier. So I think it's going to be interesting to see how the rest of the market responds.

You said that Apple's ahead of the game. Why isn't Sony ahead of the game? Sony is a company makes movies. They make PCs. They invented the Walkman. They introduced audio CD playback into the PS1, DVD movie playback into the PS2. Looking at the PSP, it had Wi-Fi before the iPhone; it can play video, audio and it has a wide screen. Why would you say that Apple is the master of those things and not Sony? Why did the PSP not capture the public's imagination the way that the iPhone seems to be?

Well, it's very easy to capture the public's imagination when you don't have a product to show for it. You can say and show anything about it and people are going to be amazed by it. Once the thing comes out, I think we'll have an apples-to-apples comparison. Until then, my hat's off to Apple. But as you pointed out, Sony has all the components available. Not to be too partisan about things, we're going to see some things at GDC that might alter your perception of the general success of Sony in this area.

For good or bad?

Well, from my perspective, good. Speaking as a consumer, which is the only detail I can really go into. The first keynote is [Playstation worldwide studios chief] Phil Harrison. We'll announce that next week. What he's going to be talking about and showing is something that gives me tremendous confidence in the Playstation 3 platform. I haven't been worried about them ever since I saw the content.

What is it?

I can't tell you. [Laughs.]

Or you'd have to kill me?

I would be the one in trouble. I do have permission to tell you that he is speaking. And I can tell you the other keynote, which is from Nintendo. [Senior managing director] Shigeru Miyamoto. It'll be his first time in eight years. He rarely does presentations about development or theory. Most of his appearances are more promotional or in a marketing context, like at an E3 or so. This is Miyamoto on stage for an hour, talking about his creative vision, from the very beginning through to implementation of the DS and the Wii. We're also awarding him the Lifetime Achievement Award at the the Game Developers Choice Awards. Another key recipient in that is Alexei Pajitnov, who will be receiving the First Penguin Award.

What's that?

That speaks to people that are in uncharted territory, do something brand new. Innovator. We have another award called the Maverick, which is at first a little bit confusing, but refers to someone who does something that everyone says you can't do. The one who refutes the naysayers. We like to have two categories, because we're a bunch of goofballs.

Going back to something you were saying earlier, about the lessons from Apple being more applicable to the hardware manufacturers. But from the software side of things, and specifically interfaces, I would say that when I look at games' interfaces and front ends--menus, navigation, etc.--interfaces in games still seem to be further behind and not as innovative or intuitive as they could be. Why do you think that is, and is that something we're going to see change and improve?

Can you give me an example of an interface that you think is ahead of game interfaces?

Look at the iTunes Music Store. I forget the name of the interface, but it's the one where you can flip through album covers and movies--

Yes.

--when I look at that--now obviously the caveat is that it's intended for mouse and keyboard navigation. When I look at the interface on Xbox 360, PS3 and even the Wii, they're very flat interfaces, very 2-D, with a bit of the third dimension as you go deeper. But as spectacular as games are supposed to be--they're supposed to be the medium of the 21st century--I don't think the interfaces capture that. And within the games themselves; take a game like Fight Night Round 3. The interface has a bit of atmosphere, it looks like something you'd paste up outside a seedy boxing club. But overall, I don't know that it really sparks the imagination or draws you in or really amps you up to play the game. I feel as though with a lot of games, the interfaces seem very perfunctory, and very much an afterthought.

Well, game interfaces occupy different points on a continuum, just like personal computer interfaces. You're citing one example, the iTunes Music Store. Or are you speaking about the music management side of it, where you're flipping through the album covers? Is that what you're referring to?

Yeah.

Yeah, so that's one spectacular example. If we think about it, we could probably come up with some spectacular game interfaces. One of the things that's capturing a lot of people's attention right now is the ability to create Miis, and the way that you get into one's own collection of Miis--that's an interface that's quite compelling. You can organize a lot of fun, playful information and connections with other people through the Mii. You're talking about 3-D elements--the kind of waveform that undulates on the Playstation 3 when you turn it on, and the orchestral chord that plays, for me, that's very much an Apple-ish level of sophistication in a user interface. The Xbox Live Dashboard has those sounds that whoosh as you go left and right and the tones are subtly different as you go deeper into and out of menu trees--there's also a kind of ascending and descending scale. There's a lot of really subtle things that I think we take for granted as players and as professionals in the gaming industry. But if you go back to playing on the Xbox or the PlayStation 2, as some of us still have to do, do a compare and contrast. You do see that new level of sophistication arise.

As you pointed out, Apple is phenomenal at this. Steve Jobs is a genius at what he's been able to create. But you may also find stories coming out of Apple, that it's a management structure of having one person manage every element. This is contrasted to Bill Gates, who has more of a theory that manages all of Microsoft, and then he enables people to step forward and create new ideas like [James] J Allard and so forth. And we end up with numerous wonderful results. It would be a shame if all companies acted on the Apple model, or the Microsoft model, or the Sony model. Instead, we consumers end up with a great variety of games and interfaces and experiences. Personally, I think the three-console structure, or three-major platform structure benefits gamers immensely for that reason.

Part II: Moledina responds to our charge that last year's keynotes were more position papers than developer-centric talks, explains where GDC fits into the post-E3-collapse conference landscape, and mentions some more of the sessions that we should all pay attention to.