By Simon Carless
 [Director Makoto Shibata (Fatal Frame) talks to our Christian Nutt about the inspiration for his West-targeted PS3/Xbox 360 shooter Quantum Theory, and details Tecmo's internal development process and plans.]
Tecmo has been one of the most consistently successful Japanese developers in appealing to a Western audience -- with its Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden franchises, as well as the lesser but notable success of its cult survival horror franchise Fatal Frame. This is so true that Koei Tecmo president says he sees Tecmo as the part of the merged company which will teach Koei how to appeal to Westerners.
Makoto Shibata, director of the company's upcoming Quantum Theory, worked on the Fatal Frame games but now has a bigger mission: to create a third person shooter that can appeal to a broad Western audience, not a select one.
A fan of Western games and a man with an eye for detail, he's serving up a PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 title which seems to owe a great deal in inspiration to Western titles -- particularly Epic's Gears of War.
The game does have a Japanese sensibility, too -- your AI partner isn't another lumbering soldier, but a lithe female warrior who dashes in for Devil May Cry-style combo attacks. Shibata calls out Japanese games -- Resident Evil 4 and his company's own Ninja Gaiden -- as influences.
Two years into its development, the game is due early next year. We tracked down Shibata and discussed the development processes and technical decisions Tecmo made with the title, and its influences and aims: It's still pretty rare for a Japanese developer to make a shooter, so I was wondering, are you a big fan of the genre? How did you come to make the decision to make a game like this?
Makoto Shibata: Yeah, I am a big action fan -- a big third person shooter fan. But looking at it from the company as well, we have action games; we have fighting games like Dead or Alive. So as sort of the next challenge for us as a company to take on, we thought a third-person shooter would be the way to go.
And this is your own engine for this game, right? You developed it all internally?
MS: Yes.
Last year, I spoke to Kikuchi-san about sharing some of the Team Ninja tech across Tecmo; has that progressed at all within the company?
MS: We definitely looked at the Ninja Gaiden engine, but this is for an action TPS, so it's a little bit different; we can't just reuse things as-is. So we have essentially come up with this on our own. We of course looked at the Ninja Gaiden engine for technical knowhow -- to borrow some of that knowhow and ask them how they do things, but it's not like we're using their tech.
You announced the game last year, but it wasn't playable.
MS: Yeah, there wasn't anything at the Tokyo Game Show last year that, game-wise, we could really show. We were still working on the engine at that point. We started from the engine, so just doing that work, even before it became a game, laying the ground-level work of making the engine took up quite a bit of time. Other third-person shooters and first-person shooters use a lot of middleware, and we're not doing that; so we had to sort of take our time to make it as we went along.
Did you consider using any middleware solutions and then decide not to, or did you feel that you wanted to develop your own technology from the start?
MS: We wanted to do it from the start; we wanted to make our own. We looked at some middleware, but in the end we decided to make it all on our own. It's worth it to make our own engine. That's what we felt.
How did you tie that into your game design process? Are you document-oriented, or prototype-oriented?
MS: There are of course areas where we planned it out on paper first, but since we were coming up with the engine -- literally everything from scratch -- it's sort of been adding to that as we go along, seeing what our needs are, and putting them into the engine. Even within Tecmo, this sort of development style is kind of different.
Since this is the first current-generation game for your team, it's probably a different process than you would follow for the next game. The next time, you'll actually have your technology set from the beginning, I'm guessing.
MS: Yeah, once the engine gets completed, we should be able to take ourselves back to more thinking about things before and planning it out before putting it into the game.
In Japanese game development I often see the concept of "planning" as a job, including production work, managing schedules and managing schedules alongside gameplay design. In America it's more split out, so some people are producers and some people are gameplay designers. How does planning work within your studio?
MS: Really, to sum it up, it's the guy who's thinking about how to make the game fun. Once you have sort of that idea -- what's going to be fun -- you look at that and say, "Okay, well what parts do we need?"
You talk to the audio, you talk to the graphics, you get the models; put them together. The planner can look at that and say whether that's what he was aiming for or not, and you can fix for that. When you're talking about basing things on a paper plan, the planner can sit down there, and that's what you're looking for; the core of the game -- what's going to make it fun. You set that there at that time.
How much documentation is typically written for a game like this? There's a lot of debate in America about how much is right, these days.
MS: There's documentation that the planner will come up with in the beginning for the concept, and that sort of becomes the core. Then, as the game progresses, in order to make sure that everybody is still on the same page, we do have some documentation that gets updated regularly for, you know, feature sets and the way things should play out. Internally, we have like a wiki page for the project, and that's the design document that has the topics for the various teams to look at, and gets updated as the game progresses.
Since this is aimed for the Western market, did you guys actually do any focus testing in the West, or any sort of user experience, or anything like that?
MS: Not official focus tests, but we were listening to sort of the opinions of our U.S. office and the people over there -- we get feedback from them.
When you're making a game like this -- more of a shooter -- is there a way to make the genre more appealing to a Japanese audience? Why do you think the Japanese audience just hasn't gotten really super interested in the genre?
MS: I'm not really sure. I'm also curious about why Japanese people haven't taken to shooters as well. I think that shooters are accepted -- you know, Resident Evil sells really well over here. So people are familiar with them; it's not like they hate them. But yeah, others just haven't taken off.
I was talking to Rex Ishibashi, who is the president of EA Japan, and he said that Western games only account for 5 percent of the Japanese market. That's a very small percentage.
MS: We think games from overseas are very high quality, so looking at the kind of stuff that they're doing now, I think that you're going to see more of a percentage and more growth in Japan for overseas games.
Do you feel like there are design elements and techniques coming out of Western games that you didn't see coming out of Japanese games, that you feel do appeal to a Japanese audience -- maybe if they were just presented in a different way?
MS: There are good points and bad points to Western games, but you look at a game like Fallout 3 and the kinds of things that you're doing within Fallout 3 -- it's an RPG, and you're going around an open world... You would think that Japanese players would like that. Maybe there's something about the setting and the world view and the look of the game that they don't like; we're not sure. But as far as game design goes, that just seems like it would be very appealing to a Japanese audience.
Quantum Theory is specifically targeted to a Western audience, but you're going to put it out in Japan as well, right?
MS: Yeah, it's going to come out here as well.
Do you have an expectation that maybe, because it comes from a Japanese team that has a lot of influence from Western games, it might actually get a better reception?
MS: Yeah, yeah. With the character design, the action elements -- we think those will appeal to a Japanese audience. When you're looking at even the visual design, we think that there's a Japanese design sense in here that informs the overall look and feel of the stages. We think Western games look gorgeous; they obviously have excellent visuals and all of that. But we want to try something that a Japanese audience would like and make it just as pretty and just as powerful as Western games.
Way back when you were making the Fatal Frame games, they were more popular in America than maybe people expected at first. Did the inspiration to make this game come from previous experience in the West, or did it come from just your desire to challenge yourself and see if you could do that deliberately?
MS: It's kind of a little bit of both. Obviously, we had success in the West, so we knew that was a possibility; and the Western market is bigger than the Japanese market, so from a business sense we wanted to succeed in the West. But it's also that I like third person shooters. I like shooters, so I wanted to make a game that I like.
Making a horror game and making a third-person shooter are very different; the process is very different. With a horror game, you're trying to control the player's emotions; you control the way they think -- the way they feel. For a third person shooter, it's more about the mechanics and responsiveness and how the game's being played. So the way you're looking for and what you're looking at are very different.     
By Simon Carless
 Japanese developer Sunsoft, fondly remembered for its 8/16-bit titles but largely absent in North America for most of the past decade, announced its intentions to reinvigorate its gaming brand in the U.S. with the help of Victor Ireland's startup Gaijinworks.
As part of its planned resurgence, Sunsoft is re-launching its official web site for the U.S., where the studio plans to post information on current releases, upcoming games, and more. The company says it will also host special promotions offering "exclusive, limited edition premiums" that both new and old Sunset fans will appreciate.
Sunsoft USA's first release -- or re-release, in this case -- for its comeback will be Blaster Master, the developer's cherished but infamously difficult platformer/metroidvania/run n' gun for the NES, originally shipped in the U.S. in 1988. The classic game is slated to hit Wii's Virtual Console shop later this month with a price of 500 Nintendo points.  The company says it has more titles coming to the States, including a particular title that Ireland believes will please old-school fans of his old video game publishing house Working Designs (Lunar series, Arc the Lad Collection). Outside of localizing Hudson's Miami Law for DS, Ireland's new company, Gaijinworks, has been fairly quiet since it opened in 2006.
Though Sunsoft has a catalog of nearly 100 titles to pull from, several of its best known games are tied to licenses, like Batman and Gremlins 2. It has several releases based on original IP, though, like Neo Geo fighter Waku Waku 7 and the excellently composed Journey to Silius.
"My relationship with Sunsoft and [Sunsoft CEO] Yoshida-san goes back more than 15 years, and when this opportunity presented itself to help Sunsoft return to the US console market, it was a natural fit for both our companies," says Ireland.
He continues, "This first Wii release is a great start, but there is one upcoming announcement in particular that will demonstrate just how serious Yoshida-san is about rebuilding the Sunsoft console gaming brand here. Game fans are going to be pretty happy when they hear about it – I know I was."
[Via Macstorm]   
By Simon Carless
I'd never heard of Gunhound before today, but I'm now adding it to my list of Christmas gifts that other people need to buy for me! Japanese developer Dracue plans to release this action-packed, 2D run'n gun for PCs on December 18th with a ¥6,090 ($69.46) disc edition and a ¥4,080 ($46.53) downloadable version.
Mecha Damashii likens the game to a spiritual sequel for Masaya's Assault Suits Leynos II on the Sega Saturn, but you can definitely see a few scenes inspired by Treasure's classic Gunstar Heroes in the trailer, too.
4Gamer, which posted a few screenshots of the title, also compares Gunhound's music to the style of Castlevania series composer Kinuyo Yamashita, which seems like an odd direction for a mech-based run'n gun but sounds sensational in the above trailer.
You can see more of Gunhound (and probably purchase the game online once its out) on Dracue's official site. 
By Simon Carless
 [Resonance of Fate's producer at Sega and director at Japanese developer Tri-Ace talk to our own Christian Nutt on the Xbox 360/PS3 game's complex battle system, character creation, and the risks of making an HD RPG in a difficult market.]
Takayuki Suguro is director of Resonance of Fate, known as End of Eternity in Japan, and previously worked on Square Enix games such as the acclaimed Vagrant Story.
Now at Star Ocean developer Tri-Ace, he's leading the Sega-published HD gun battle RPG, which seems to blend John Woo-style cinematic gunplay with a quasi-traditional JRPG interface.
We spoke with Suguro, along with Sega producer Matsuhiro Shimano about the upcoming game's complex battle system, character creation (and avoiding the JRPG femininity stereotype).
The conversation about the game, which debuts in January 2010 in Japan and later in 2010 in the West, also encompasses the risks of making an HD RPG in a difficult market - not to mention the curious penchant Japanese game companies have for RPGs with words like "final," "end," or "last" in the title: Resonance of Fate is very visually complex, whereas Tri-Ace's Infinite Undiscovery was quite simple and straightforward. Why the decision to go in this direction for Resonance of Fate?
Takayuki Suguro: First and foremost, we wanted to make this game very cinematic. You've probably seen in the battle system, it's a very cinematic battle. But at the same time, we didn't want to... When trying to make this game cinematic looking, we wanted to add the action game element as well. I tried to focus on the action element.
What's going to happen is that the [players] get better at the action genre -- the people that are very good at action games are going to look good when they're playing. And someone who's not really into the action genre may not be able to have the same gaming experience.
So, we needed to find a balance between not making it too easy and not making it too difficult, while also making it look cinematic. So balancing was the biggest difficulty when developing the game. Through that process we came up with adding this strategy element, which you might find a little more complex. Actually, the strategy part makes the game look and play much better.
It seems aimed quite squarely toward core users. How do you feel the market is for really core users these days as the market has been expanded?
TS: Because the market has expanded remarkably to casual users, there are so many games that are really casual, pick-up-and-play 15-minute or 20-minute games, but we wanted to make a game that satisfied core users, the traditional gamers who like challenge, and like to get really deep into things and into the gameplay experience. I'm not really too concerned. We wanted to make a game for the core market, so we did it.
This game has a focus on high-end graphics. Obviously, it's a full HD RPG, but there hasn't been an HD Japanese RPG that's been a breakout hit yet. Are you at all concerned? Do you feel that the market is there for a high-end HD level RPG?
TS: Obviously if you try to develop a game on the current gen consoles, there are a lot of risks, like development costs, scheduling, and so forth. What happens is that previous RPGs may not have experimented with new gameplay. They want to minimize their risks, so they kind of went for the traditional simpler gameplay or went with a series sequel. So maybe the users have gotten fed up with the similar-looking or similar playing in this high def RPG market.
With this in mind we wanted to make Resonance of Fate a really, really different title from the competitors, so that what's you saw in the gameplay. That's what you saw in the story. By making something really challenging, it's kind of like a challenge to the market, trying to expand the current users. We want to also bring back those traditional core gamers who own an HD console. We want them to return to the RPG genre.
When making something of this scale, which is obviously high budget so it has to sell higher, how do you have to consider markets outside of Japan?
Mitsuhiro Shimano: Obviously, we did have to look outside the Japanese market. We had to look worldwide for it to make sense commercially. But that doesn't mean that we changed some bits of the game to be more Western. It's in line with the original plan that we had from the beginning when Tri-Ace pitched this project to Sega. It's in line with that.
Yes, Sega's American and European subsidiaries did have their say. They kind of had their input and opinions or marketing data research. "These kind of games sell in the West," this and that. Tri-Ace didn't just put [those suggestions] into the game straight away without thinking, though. They wanted to stick to the original plans.
They're all opinions. There are some really small or detailed elements that kind of make sense much better in the Western market as well, but it doesn't mean that whatever makes it in the Western market is input straight into the game.
I mean more like trying to create a global product rather than a local product. For instance, Capcom has succeeded recently by making games that are just overall good games, that will appeal to a wide number of people simply because they're not built around something that is local or colloquial. It appeals broadly.
TS: If you compared it to some other Sega RPGs or Sega titles, it is more of a worldwide title. Like the character design, some of the JRPG characters tend to look to Westerners as rather feminine, even the male characters. In terms of that, we kind of made some adjustments. But we also believe that what makes the game is interesting is quite the same wherever you're from.
Would you say you're trying to balance global appeal with local flavor?
MS: At a relatively early point of development, the development team and I went to Sega of America, and we had quite a few discussions about the game design and how it's going to turn out. Quite luckily, our American subsidiary didn't have any major issues at that point, so the game has been relatively more worldwide-targeted compared to some other titles.
What are the main things that you have to consider when designing characters? Like, obviously, there's the visual appeal, and the femininity you mentioned, but maybe also emotional resonance. What are your major considerations there?
TS: We were really careful when they were designing characters. In this game, what might be most intriguing compared to some other titles is that there isn't a single protagonist. We have three main characters. It's a balance of the three characters, where we don't want any one particular character stand out compared to the other two characters. That might be the most interesting part.
Other than that, it's a balancing of everything -- how it looks, how the players can emotionally resonate to the in-game characters. Though we didn't want any one character to stand out, in the marketing response a lot of people said, "Oh, that female character is actually very good." In terms of the ad campaign, we might have to focus a little bit slightly more towards the female character. [laughs]
I've noticed that a lot of next-gen RPGs have some kind of ending or finale to the title, so there's End of Eternity (Japanese title for Resonance of Fate), Last Remnant, Star Ocean 4: Last Hope, and so on. Why do you think there's so much fatalism in these game titles?
TS: [laughs] Originally, this game was meant to be called Resonance of Time or Resonance of Fate, and Sega was saying they wanted End of Eternity, so people kind of say End of Eternity was the first title and America and Europe changed it to Resonance. Resonance of Time is the original title. The guys wanted it that way.
To your question, one thing is that maybe the Japanese market likes the end, the final, the last for some reason. And also, if you look at all the RPG games that have those titles, the protagonist is usually the savior to a kind of ending world, so the name probably links with how the story is going to develop.
Plus, there's Final Fantasy after all.
TS: There is that! It can't be denied. 
By Simon Carless
 [Our own Brandon Sheffield sat down with Nippon Ichi president and COO Souhei Niikawa and Disgaea team development lead Masahiro Yamamoto to discuss the SRPG-focused company's new PSP game, as well as its philosophy and operating practices.]
For over 15 years, Japanese developer and publisher Nippon Ichi Software has been releasing hardcore-targeted RPGs, particularly strategy RPGs like the successful Disgaea series.
Most recently, the team behind Disgaea has announced its newest game, Zettai Hero Kaizou Keikaku (which Siliconera translates as Absolute Hero Modding Project), a PSP dungeon-crawling action RPG that -- like many other Nippon Ichi games -- features plenty of randomly-generated content.
We talked with NIS president and COO Souhei Niikawa and Disgaea team development lead Masahiro Yamamoto to discuss the small company's attitude toward game development, its RPG success, and why throwing characters is such a big deal in its titles: Your focus has been on RPGs, particularly Disgaea. Where will you focus going forward?
Souhei Niikawa: Well, RPGs remain a popular genre for the hardcore audience, so I think that RPGs will still be a central part of our strategy.
Disgaea is certainly an important title for Nippon Ichi. We'll continue to grow that game by doing what's best for that particular series. Placing our fortunes on nothing but Disgaea wouldn't be right at all. For example, we want to grow this new game in the same way that we've grown Disgaea. We want to make games that are different from Disgaea, of course, but sell just as well as that.
A lot of Nippon Ichi's character designs have "moe" and "loli" elements. Will that continue? Has for the market for that become smaller?
SN: We made games for the people who play them. If the audience's needs shift away from moe or loli, then we'd certainly go with a different design. We still think there's a demand for that, though, so it will probably continue. From the creator's perspective, we think it's very important to keep trying new things, and as a result, we naturally don't want to stick with any one thing for too long.
What made you adopt that style in the beginning? Did it start out with what the development team liked?
SN: Yes. Well, it's undeniable that a large part of our audience is what people would call game otaku, or hardcore game fans. So we want to make what they want, but at the same time, we're all pretty hardcore too. So, there's that. (laughs)
The first Disgaea really seemed to be designed around picking up and throwing characters. That influenced the rest of the dungeon design and combos in battle. Would you agree with that?
SN: Certainly. Well, not just with Disgaea, but it's been an important aspect of a lot of our games, including this one here. It's been that way from around that time.
It's sort of a Nippon Ichi trademark.
SN: Yeah. We're all about throwing people. (laughs) Using that as a vital tactical tool.
Where did the idea for that come from?
SN: The original task before us was to figure out how this game would be different from the rest. We needed some strong and unique gameplay aspect that would give this project some sort of individual hook. I think it's something that's worked, as you can see how the series has progressed from 1 to 3.
Masahiro Yamamoto: I don't really remember the individual process that led to the pick-up-and-throw idea, but we were coming up with all kinds of ideas to put in the game and make it unique.
The original Disgaea is full of original little ideas like that, but it's undeniable that the throwing system is the idea that stuck out the most in gamers' minds once it came out. It's the result of that kind of thought process.
Just thinking about it by itself, it's hard to conceptualize how it'd be fun. How did you decide that the feature was so important to have?
MY: Well, we're a very small company, and none of the teams behind our projects is particularly large. That structure allows individuals to test out assorted ideas pretty quickly as they come up with them, then show them around to see what the rest of the team thinks.
I don't think that teams the size of what you have for Final Fantasy would be able to try out such risky things within development. I think that's one of the merits of having a small company like ours; it's easier to try new challenges, and that's how a lot of features in our games are born.
You go through a lot of iterations.
MY: I think so, yeah.
How much content is too much for one game? With the item world, you could keep going forever. How do you know when to stop?
SN: I guess you could say it's when we feel like there's nothing left to add to the gameplay.
MY: Oh, we never really stop. (laughs) We put so much stuff into each project, and eventually we get to a point where we ask ourselves, "Do we really need all this?"
When a majority of staffers start answering, "I'm not sure" to that question, that's when we stop. (laughs) That's pretty much how it works.
We really think that having a lot to explore in our games is very important -- especially with the Disgaea series, where it's become kind of a hallmark. Of course, we definitely can't take that approach with all of our titles; instead, we find different ways of making the games engaging and fun to our audience.
I was wondering if you're concerned that if you give too much, there might not be any need to buy sequels.
MY: That's not really much of a worry to us. The way we see it, in fact, most of audience goes through our games pretty quickly, especially the really hardcore people who support the Disgaea series. It's really something, the amount of time they put into playing our stuff. I wouldn't call it a big worry.
Nippon Ichi is pretty much the only game company in Gifu Prefecture. Do you think your company has any regional flavor since you're isolated from other developers?
SN: Well, the Internet is everywhere, and we're a game company, after all, so it's certainly not an inconvenience or anything.
I would say [our flavor] is not in the location so much as our style of company. Since we're kind of out in the country and have small development teams, that helps to add individuality to our games.
In Tokyo, you have a lot of developers who have gone from company to company, quitting one job and picking up another one right off. I think the fact that we've not experienced that as much helps us keep consistent in the sorts of games we release.
Do your staffers come from all over Japan?
SN: Yes. We don't really headhunt from other companies or anything. Sometimes we hire new grads who apply to our company; sometimes we get people who have previous experience with other game companies.
Finally, when you start a new game, from what point do you begin -- an idea, a list of features? What is your jumping-off point?
MY: In the beginning, there's only an outline, a very general idea of what kind of game we want to make -- what kind of world we want, for example. Then things just expand off from there, and eventually we figure out what sort of genre would be best, like how this game turned out to be a dungeon RPG. That's how things begin.  
By Simon Carless
 [In his cheerfully quirky way, our own Brandon Sheffield talks to U.S. Natsume president Yasuhiro Maekawa about his uncommon hands-on approach, the acquisition of the Afrika license from Sony, and using niche genres to build out new franchises.]
Natsume is known primarily as the U.S. publisher of the Harvest Moon series, developed in Japan by Marvelous Entertainment. But the company has much more to it than that.
First, there’s the Japanese developer of the same name, which is not so much a parent company as a sister developer. Most recently in the U.S., Natsume Japan developed Omega 5 for XBLA, which was published by Hudson, not Natsume U.S.
Also curious is U.S. Natume president Yasuhiro Maekawa’s very hands-on approach to development. Often he will come up with an idea himself, and hire a developer in Japan to realize his vision. Such was the case when he commissioned the young female-targeted DS game Princess Debut from classic shooting game stalwart Cave.
Perhaps most intriguingly, Natsume has gotten the license to release Afrika, a quirky first-party Sony PS3 title involving wildlife photography, in the U.S.
In this interview, we discuss with Maekawa all of these facets of Natsume, as well as the why and how of the Afrika deal, and how the company uses lower-selling niche titles as a market test for bigger ideas.
We also discuss here the cancellation of the U.S. version of the PSP action title Umihara Kawase, (to be Yumi’s Odd Odyssey in the States) which had something of a cult following, and was to have a number of bug fixes and improvements over the Japanese original: Afrika, Umihara Kawase
How did you wind up getting Afrika? This was a big surprise to everyone, because it’s a Sony first-party title.
Yasuhiro Maekawa: This is kind of a difficult question to answer, because Sony has a lot of third party people. But to make a long story short, Afrika was something we were very interested in. But of course, it’s a first-party title. So we thought in the beginning, we can’t do anything. But there was an opportunity, and it became apparent that we could get the license.
And when I thought about it, if you look at our titles, they’re very much oriented toward peaceful, friendly, type of titles. Afrika’s nature perfectly matches with our lineup. So we started talking about it. Just saying “this game is really good. Good for Natsume’s family of titles.” So basically that’s what happened.
Is this the beginning of a larger relationship with Sony in that way?
YM: I don’t think so. As I understand Sony basically doesn’t license products developed by Sony. As is shown with Afrika there might be one or two exceptions to the rule, though.
Yeah, that’s why it was something of a surprise.
YM: I know – there have been a lot of people walking by saying “oh, you got it! How did you get it?” (laughs)
That’s pretty much what everyone thought! So when will Afrika be coming out?
YM: We are targeting some time around September. We want to run some special presale promotions. So the game might be ready for release even in July, but we’d like to hold until we feel comfortable.
Is this the first HD game published by Natsume?
YM: Yes, it’s the first.
Do you think Natsume will do more in that direction, or is this just an experiment?
YM: We are not so interested in the so-called “value” titles. Most of the Natsume games I’d say are about in the middle. Sort of normal retail price titles with normal graphical levels.
Like with the DS, we want to price things at $29.99, not $19.99. But for a PlayStation 3 title, this will probably be $49.99. That’s what we’re thinking. Between $39.99 and $49.99. $59.99 is probably too much.
I also mean whether you think you’ll publish more games of this level.
YM: If this game is successful, we may. This game is kind of a test.
Whatever happened to Yumi’s Odd Odyssey (known as Umihara Kawase in Japan)?
YM: That’s on hiatus.
Why is that?
YM: That one, basically with the copyright, there seems to be some issue outside of us between the copyright holder and the publisher in Japan. So we were trying to get the license from the publisher and apparently they have some issue with the copyright holder. I think at the last minute we had to put it on hold. Which means it won’t come out. From our side, it’s canceled. We don’t want to be involved in some complicated... stuff.
The DS version is also getting made, might you pick that one up instead?
YM: If there’s a chance, or if somebody offers it to us, certainly we’d look into that.
Building Niches
How did Princess Debut do, in the end? Was it ok?
YM: I’d say it did so-so. It’s not like a big hit, but certainly Princess Debut, got a really loyal fanbase. So we’re now planning to release Princess Debut in Europe in August. So we localized it into French, and German.
Do you think you’ll ever work with (Princess Debut and classic shooting game developer) Cave again? Because I love Cave.
YM: If there’s any chance, yes. I’d like to.
I keep hoping someone will release Cave’s Xbox 360 titles in the U.S.
YM: Right now we’d like to concentrate on Sony and Nintendo titles. As you know, we don’t have a big overhead. So in the future when there’s an opportunity, we will branch out more.
And it looks like you’re still trying to expand further into the girls’ market, because you’ve got this game Cheer We Go! here.
YM: Yes, we’re targeting the tween girls’ market there. Age 8-11, and the storyline is based on something like a popular middleschool cheerleader, with an intriguing storyline.
How do you feel smaller titles like Squishytank for instance, will do on the DS going forward?
YM: You mean like these sort of unknown titles on DS? I think it’s a niche title. And if you look at what we have now, we have a bunch of niche titles nobody’s heard of before. But niche titles are one of our marketing strategies, along with competitive marketing strategies.
For example, with Squishytank, or Cheer We Go, we’re not thinking about selling a big amount of units. If we can sell even smaller units in the beginning, that should be fine. Then when we think – ok, there are some real fans there. Then we’ll gradually expand the franchise.
Like Harvest Moon. Way back almost 11 years ago, the first Harvest Moon for SNES wasn’t a big seller. But I realized, ok, this is a niche title. It may have great potential to grow. Then, my idea was correct.
Do you foresee something similar for Princess Debut, since you said there are some devoted fans?
YM: Yes, that’s what we’re thinking.
Natsume and Downloadable Content
What do you feel is the current status of Natsume in the U.S. right now? Are you expanding more?
YM: We are expanding. As I probably explained to you before, we don’t want to just jump all of a sudden. We want to grow slowly but surely. One way we’re expanding now is growing from the package business to download contents business as well.
We have downloadable contents for WiiWare, with Harvest Moon: My Little Shop, and Reel Fishing Challenge, which is exclusively for WiiWare. And also we’re expanding our business into cellular phone and iPhone business as well.
We have Harvest Moon: Frantic Farming for cellphones, in Java, Brew, and iPhone versions. So this is where we’re heading. We’ll keep our packaging business. Of course we’re trying to expand that too. But at the same time, we’re trying to grow our downloadable contents business.
What do you think about the DSi hardware, do you foresee releasing games for that as well?
YM: I think it will do well. I don’t know how well, but we have a pretty big expectation for the DSi.
So will you be bringing Harvest Moon to DSi?
YM: Yes, yes.
Any plans for when?
YM: That should be probable sometime in summer of next year. For now we’d like to wait and see just how well DSi will go in America.
What about the PSPgo?
YM: I think it’s an excellent idea, just because we are now expanding our business model to download contents business, and as I understand the PSPgo is download-specific. So yes, it’s a good opportunity for us. Oh and by the way, we’re already working on the PSP so-called “legacy” titles, converting them to download.
What do you think about download-only titles? For the PSPgo for instance, do you think download only will make sense for that console?
YM: Yes, and the reason why is I think that Natsume, and also publishers in general have a big issue right now. Basically, there are so many titles out there, but retailers, store shelves are very limited. If you go to Wal-Mart, they have one case there, which may hold 48 titles. However the top row is all Nintendo titles, second row, all EA.
Which means the middle-size publishing companies like us, if it’s Reel Fishing or the Harvest Moon franchise, or maybe Afrika, they might possibly show interest. But if it’s our original titles, and we have some more original titles here, it’s very tough to sell to retail stores.
In that case, the online downloadable content becomed viable. Plus the development costs are not as high as in the package business. So for us, I think it’ll do well.
One of the difficult issues with some downloadable stuff is that there can be too much on there too, and it can be almost as hard to get noticed, sometimes.
YM: Right. So first we have to establish some brand image. Then after that we’ll extend into different arenas.
Who’s developing your iPhone game?
YM: I don’t know if you’ll know the name of the company, it’s a company called Platinum Egg.
Yeah, they do a lot of stealth development, like Tose and other companies.
YM: Yeah, Platinum Egg, we’ve been working together for many many years now. So when I thought about the iPhone, all of a sudden it came to my mind, “ok, that’s the only company that can develop the Harvest Moon game for iPhone and iPod Touch, based on my own idea.” You know a lot of creators are not so flexible sometimes. But Platinum Egg is really flexible. 
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