IGN: Will there also be Japanese voice-overs with English text, for those hardcore gamers?
Tomonobu Itagaki: Yes, it will have both Japanese and English voice tracks. As always, we don't have enough space on own disc for what we want to do. But there will be both voice tracks.
IGN: Can you talk about the engine a little bit? How much has improved and changed over DOA4 to really make the graphics shine in this game?
Tomonobu Itagaki: So obviously in Dead or Alive 4 we wanted to make sure we had every major practical element so that everything was looking good. But what's really important when using a graphics engine is to stay focused on what are you trying to emphasize. So in this game you have settings with strong sunlight hitting the character directly, so we have put in things like self-shadowing that emphasize that type of graphical style that people like.
One thing that I really do want to make clear is that a lot people like to throw around key words. Like, we're using this or that graphical technique, therefore the game must look great. When the fact is you need to decide what the game is going to look like -- what is the graphical image you are shooting for -- and then to look at the engineering techniques you need to implement to make that vision happen. It's important that, in this day and age, what you are trying to show should come first, and that the technology should back that up. Not the other way around.
IGN: On a similar subject, how do you like working on the Xbox 360? Are you finding that it's a hard, powerful, or a robust system to work on? Is it interesting, enjoyable, difficult? Does it make you feel like you're working on a next-generation system?
Tomonobu Itagaki: I think the Xbox 360 is a great platform. It's got a lot of power and flexibility and I think it's reasonable from a price standpoint.
IGN: Has it been interesting or difficult for your team or you to work around the three core processors?
Tomonobu Itagaki: Well, for anyone who is having a hard time programming the Xbox 360 on all three cores, they're welcome to come over to Team Ninja and we'll help them out. (Laughter.) No, I don't think the Xbox 360 is difficult to program for.
IGN: It's really interesting, some of the first developers didn't get their kits until very late, and they were using G5 Macs to program for, and they weren't used to programming for multiple processors. What do you use the six different threads on the three cores for?
Tomonobu Itagaki: Well, for instance, if you were to shut down two of the threads in the engine, then you wouldn't see some of the hair blowing or some of the ribbons or strings moving in the wind. So even on the same hardware, how we really use the hardware really depends on the title. So if you're working on a game like Ninja Gaiden 2, where it's really important that enemies are smart and challenging, then we might use up to two threads on AI. But for a game like this, where our main goal is to make the girls look good, then we can use two threads for hair and cloth physics. So it's really important to make the hardware do what you want to show.
IGN: So you said that this game will ship around Thanksgiving in North America. Will this game ship in Japan, Europe and North America simultaneously?
Tomonobu Itagaki: It will ship around the same time in all three regions.
IGN: Looking into the future, does Team Ninja have plans to develop PlayStation 3 games? And will there be any announcements of said games at TGS?
Tomonobu Itagaki: Yeah, we have seen the PlayStation 3 hardware and we're studying it. We're messing around with it right now. I think it's a good machine. But I think the most important thing is for people to have good games that they want to play on good hardware, so if there is a demand for it, we may follow that path some time in the future. Obviously, we are big supporters of the Xbox platform. There are a lot of fans of the Xbox that support us and are with us because of that, so I just want everyone to know that we are going to continue bringing out the newest releases on the Xbox platform before they're on other systems.
IGN: Nice. Are there any new announcements you are making at TGS that you'd like to tell us now instead? Like for instance, something about Dead Or Alive Code Cronus?
Tomonobu Itagaki: Yeah, at the moment I have a number of games for the Xbox platform in mind, enough to fill up the fingers on one hand. You know, Code Cronus is one of those. So, it's a possibility.
IGN: So if Code Cronus is one of those, and Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 is on another, is Ninja Gaiden 2 on another finger?
Tomonobu Itagaki: I won't upset anybody by denying your expectations. I like to see people's expectations fulfilled.
IGN: Is there anything that you want to talk about regarding Dead or Alive Xtreme 2 that we haven't covered?
Tomonobu Itagaki: I think it's a great game. I hope everybody buys and enjoys it, and is able to relax and have a good time with it. I can promise you that you won't be disappointed
