Why do they toy with me?! Freespace 2 is still one of my top 5 games ever. But holy god if they made a new Freespace and made it a goddamn consolized piece of crap I would have to shoot somebody in the face. With a spoon.
They don't care, unless you can guarantee them a million sales. If you can do that, you can blast people with all the utensils you want.
For me, Freelancer was the one classic space "fighter combat" type game that worked well with a mouse and keys so I know it can be done. Frankly, the guy sounds more interested in the brief interview about trying to bring Freespace to consoles (and presumably sell more units) than trying to revive an effectively dead genre on PC. Although I can remember a brief glorious time when most of the top 10 sellers were space combat games (X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Wing Commander etc.). I have been gradually junking my old Logitech and CH joysticks at an electronics recycler of late, making peace with the notion I likely won't be playing space combat and flight sims anymore.
I think it just comes down to cost-of-development. If they could figure out a way to do a Freespace game without spending a fortune that requires it to be a mass market hit to even break even, they could do it. Volition's not a cheap indy developer though. I think you have a better chance of seeing someone small pull off something like that (maybe even on smartphones) 'cause it wouldn't have to fret so much about selling 500,000, 1 million or 2 million or however many copies.
