Peter Molyneux, head of Lionhead Studios, is a firm believer in Xbox Live – so much so that he thinks the impact of Microsoft's online service will ultimately be greater than that of Nintendo's motion-sensing Wii.

In an interview with gaming site Canaljuegos (spotted by Kotaku), Molyneux commented, "All I can say is that Microsoft is an incredibly smart company and I never fail to be impressed by just how clever they are. Don't forget this is the company which pioneered [Xbox] Live which I believe will ultimately be far more impactful on video games in the long term than something like the Wii controller."

Of course, Molyneux's perspective can't be completely objective since Microsoft acquired Lionhead in April 2006. That said, he does bring up a valid question. Xbox Live has been around for years, and its impact on the industry and the movement towards online gaming, digital downloads and microtransactions has been enormous. The Wii's impact on the industry has been quite significant as well in the early going, but the long-term implications from Nintendo's new approach are yet to be determined.

Later in the interview, Molyneux also briefly touched upon the decline of the PC gaming market. Like id Software's Tim Willits, Molyneux has recognized that consoles have overtaken the spotlight (and the revenue).

"I think the PC is a wonderful platform for certain genres of games such as RTS and Simulation games but there are an awful lot of other genres that don´t work so well on it. The strength on console is their simplicity and accessibility so ultimately I think they will dominate the games market except in certain specific games genres," he said.