Morning. I just read the interviews with Miyazaki from Guardian and from Famitsu. I don't think there's much room for misunderstanding here. What he says is very clear, although it does sound weird and it seems to reflect the lack of experience he has in terms of doing PR for this sort of thing, or understanding the market.
There are a few things he makes very clear:
- The PC version of Dark Souls is a Bandai Namco Games initiative which was brought up after the release of the console version. Remember that From Software published the PS3 version themselves in Japan, while Bandai Namco requested the 360 version for the international market. This seems similar, and Bandai Namco is footing the entire bill and helping them with development as well.
- The PC version is 70-80% complete, the content is basically all at the end stages of development, with the focus being balancing and QC right now. In particular Bandai Namco has been helping them with QC and specifications.
- Miyazaki says that the base game is intended to be a straight port with no change in resolution and he specifically says not to expect 60 fps. This is probably his most controversial statement, because it does seem to suggest that it will run at a locked resolution and framerate. Until he clarifies further, I do feel that is the intended message to manage expectations.
- With regards to how big the new areas are, he mentions in the Japanese interview that if you consider each "are" as a place where you enter into a new sort of setting or situation and the game displays an area name on screen, there will be 3 of these areas being added. One of these areas in particular is something he had in mind which is based on the past history of Darkroot Garden. The actual design of the area is brand new though, and not a rehash.
- There are two questions in the Japanese interview which Miyazaki very frankly said he was unable to comment on. One is regarding any changes to PvP, to which he said that he cannot talk about it at the moment, but he implies there will be some sort of new features which will follow in the spirit of Dark Souls' experimental online nature.
- The other question was about a Japanese release for this product, to which he says he also cannot answer the question right now. Since Bandai Namco does not publish the game in Japan, it seems From Software isn't very sure about what they're going to do with it domestically at the moment. All they are focused on right now is finishing the PC version for international release, while they try to work something out for the other fans.
What I personally read from these interviews is that the ball is really in Bandai Namco Games' court here, and not From Software. They seem to have full control over all the technical and publishing elements of the PC version, and since they're paying for the development, it's probably also up to them to decide if they want to turn that into DLC as well for the console versions. On Miyazaki's part, he seems dedicated to add value to the new release, and is putting substantial effort into making it worthwhile for people looking forward to that content.
Aside from that, he seems very naive and inexperienced with regards to what PC gamers expect, and so he probably doesn't realize the backlash of what he is saying is causing. To him, he probably considers it a good thing if they can develop a PC version which is equal in performance to the console game without making compromises. He probably hasn't considered the natural advantages of PC hardware to make the game performance automatically better.
That's my two cents.