There's a new Fallout 3 Q&A on Strategy Informer talking with Pete Hines of Bethesda Softworks in a detailed discussion of their upcoming continuation of the post-apocalyptic RPG series. They wrap things up with what seems like the essential question gamers have about this project, which is how a Fallout game that will also appear on consoles will live up to the expectations of hardcore fans of the first two games:

Ultimately, I think it’s up to everybody to make up their own mind about whether or not Fallout is a game they want to play, and whether it’s a game worth playing, and how good or not it is. There’s no one source in this world for “I determine the Fallout-ness of any game in this universe”, nobody gets to do that, everybody has to decide for themselves and even just sitting here I’ve had people say “I have a fan who is a hardcore Fallout fan, and he says what he remembers most about Fallout is X”, and whatever he says ends up being slightly different or completely different to somebody else. Everybody takes something different from every experience. Our thing is we’re going to try to make the best possible fallout game that we can, we believe that it is a game where if you loved the original games, you’ll see lots of things here that will remind you those previous Fallout’s. If you’ve never played Fallout, there’s a lot here to make you become a big fan of this universe.

But we just get to make the game, we don’t get to make that call on how good or not good it is. We just focus on what we’re doing and then guys like you will decide if we were right or not.