ith Rez HD becoming another ported version of a previous Tetsuya Mizuguchi title, we had to travel to Q Entertainment to find out what the Miz was actually up to. With his hands in a number of different projects in the video game world, and his side project Genki Rockets finishing off a massive Live Earth appearance in Japan, what’s Q’s Chief Creative Officer got in the hopper? We catch up with Mizuguchi-san to find out what the plan is for a sequel to Lumines, Rez, and Space Channel 5, and more.

Game Informer: When I first interviewed you, Lumines was already out in Japan and it was coming out in the States, and that was actually an internal programming job from Q Entertainment. But now, a lot of games that have come out of Q have either been made by another development house, like Ninety-Nine Nights was with Phantagram, that you oversaw, and a lot of the work with Meteos was done by [Masahiro] Sakurai. So I have to ask you, what do you actually do?

Tetsuya Mizuguchi: In past projects or now?

GI: I guess overall.

Mizuguchi: All the time, my role is different. It depends on the project. In the case of Sakurai-san, I just gave him a key word and a key concept. So, multitasking, you’re watching something on the one screen and interacting and touching things on the other. With Lumines, I gave the team much more of a strong concept. I tried to adjust my style and do something with a puzzle game where every sound and visual effect is complementing the music and changing and changing. In Ninety-Nine Nights, I came up with the key concept and I made a team and we talked and talked and talked. It was a huge team, including not only the visual and cinematic team. I did the game design. My role was that I gave the concept. I do any roles I feel I should do. This is my style. I would love to collaborate with more talented people. I think it’s like the movie industry. We have freedom. There’s new challenges with music-industry people. I directed a performance at Live Earth on July 7 with holographic technology and using lasers in front of 10,000 people at the Makuhari Messe and 2 billion people watched—maybe it wasn’t 2 billion, but I know many people watched it. I’m very interested in creating a new entertainment form with new technologies and talented people.

GI: With bringing something like Rez back, does it make you excited to revisit old things or does it make you want to create an all-new game?

Mizuguchi: It depends on the game. Rez, when it was introduced in 1998-2001, I played Rez many many many times. Almost 1,000 times from when it was a prototype to the end. I felt like I didn’t like the surround experience and I wanted a wider screen. I can say this is a complete version on the Xbox 360, in HD and 5.1. I think if I feel like I should make a new game, we will do that.

GI: When I first visited Q, you were making games internally. I think you were working on Lumines 2 at the time. Now that you’ve expanded, are you working on a new project, and do you have the staff for multiple teams?

Mizuguchi: There is an internal project. The other one is outside. If we have confidence to make good, creative directions, we will do that. It’s very difficult to make a purely new game with young people if we don’t have anyone with the creative vision.

GI: You collaborated with Sakurai-san for Meteos and Phantagram with Ninety-Nine Nights. Who else would you like to collaborate with?

Mizuguchi: In the game industry?

GI: Not necessarily.

Mizuguchi: If I had the chance to work in a genre I don’t have any experience with, like an RPG, I would want to collaborate with someone. I don’t have anyone I could name yet. I tried a racing game first, cars and bikes; a music-based game; a puzzle game and an action game like Ninety-Nine Nights. I don’t care about genre all the time. Recently, I was making music-based games. If I made an RPG in the future, I would like to make a new type of one. If I had a chance, I would like to collaborate with American or European people, because most of the games look Eastern or Western still, and I would like to make a hybrid new title that looked like something new. I don’t want to care about business, the money or the running of the company. If I don’t need to think about that, I want to collaborate. I want to try to get totally different people together. Maybe Peter Molyneux. Maybe Will Wright. He’s a nice guy. It must be fun to have that discussion—what’s the next game, what’s the future of the game market?