Seeing as Zoonami only consists of ten staff, how does that work in a world where the next-gen average team size is into triple figures?

MH: I try to work from first principles. I want to make games that are interesting to me but also commercial. There's a contradiction there, but I don't want to make the obviously next-gen shooter with the team of 100 that has better graphics than the one that came out the year before. There was a tiny, tiny bit of that in Perfect Dark. We tried to change as many things as we could, but still for me it wasn't as different as I wanted my next project from GoldenEye to be.

After your experiences with GoldenEye and Perfect Dark, do you think you'd ever be interested in working on a sequel?

MH: I wouldn't rule anything out, never say never, but personally, I'd like to be working on something that has a lot of fresh talent involved and that's more brave. There aren't many developers who say, 'We won't do sequels'. It used to be a rule at Treasure didn't it? I wouldn't adopt that as a principle. You never know, maybe there's an interesting way to do a sequel sometimes.

What's the future for Zoonami?

MH: Downloadable games are what we have been waiting for. For the first six years of our existence, the world wasn't configured to suit us, because we're not making the obvious type of retail game but now downloads suddenly change everything. It's a great development for us, and it's great for developers in general because it will mean more new and novel games with low budgets. And on a wider level, I think it will mean a revitalisation for the whole games industry away from games that have been turning off a lot of people, and I'm not just talking about us professionals.

Zendoku for the PSP

So the time for research is over and the time to start delivering has begun?

MH: Certainly we've had our quiet period and I hope that's over now because we want to get more games to market and downloads are going to deliver that for us. The idea of being able to make a game that costs £5 is very interesting. I think gaming should be something that everyone does, and that's not compatible with a £40 price point.

What should we expect? Is there a Zoonami-style of game? Could you do an RTS?

MH: We have all kinds of ideas in terms of genre, RTS ideas too, I'd always hope to be doing something unexpected, so any genre is possible. To be honest, I'd love to work in all genres. I'm always striving to hybridise or discover a new genre, which is increasingly hard. But in general our principle is, it's got to be fun. We're not going to make a serious game, although in the other sense of the word, we could make an educational game. But that aside, it's difficult to say. We like to keep things interesting.