Shack: What about a downloadable demo? A Team Ninja Xbox Live Arcade game? Perhaps a downloadable Xbox Originals release of Ninja Gaiden Black?

Microsoft PR: We're not commenting on that at this time.

Shack: What are the chances of an eventual re-release, a la Ninja Gaiden Black, that would contain all of the downloadable content?

Tomonobu Itagaki: I haven't thought about that at all.

When we did the first Ninja Gaiden on Xbox, the attach rate for Xbox Live was still low back then, in number of subscribers.

I felt it was unfair that only the people that were part of the fledgling Xbox Live service back then were able to enjoy all of the content we had done for the Hurricane Packs, so I wanted to give offline-only users a chance to experience all of the content as well.

But now, it's totally different. The attach rate for Xbox Live on the 360 is huge. I don't feel like I have to worry about that any more.

Shack: Now that Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden have both made the transition to Xbox 360, how much further can you take them? Is there anything left for you to expand upon in future iterations?

Tomonobu Itagaki: In terms of Ninja Gaiden versus Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden is still a franchise in its infancy, we're just going from one to two at this point. Whereas Dead or Alive, I really feel, has really gotten to the point where there's still things that can be improved on, it's pretty close to perfection in terms of being a good fighting game.

I think there's still a lot of areas, undiscovered territory, in the Ninja Gaiden franchise in terms of core gameplay elements and core game design elements.

For Dead or Alive, when we moved to 360, because everything was at such a high level of completion, we could focus on things like online play or creating the lobbies, whereas for Ninja Gaiden it's really about pushing the boundaries of what we can do with the actual gameplay.

Shack: Namco Bandai just announced that Soul Calibur IV will feature Star Wars icons Yoda and Darth Vader as playable characters. Some folks think this is incredibly awesome, while others see it as a blatant cash-in. What are your thoughts?

Tomonobu Itagaki: As far as the announcement, I guess people are going to have to be careful not to get eaten up by the Star Wars characters [chuckle].

On a more serious note, I've heard that each of the Star Wars characters are exclusive to one of the platforms, is that right?

Shack: Yes, that's correct. Yoda for the Xbox 360, Darth Vader for the PlayStation 3.

Tomonobu Itagaki: Speaking as a producer, I would say that I don't agree with that approach. I think it's a disservice to gamers.

I feel it's fine, if I'm doing a multi-platform game, to say, "Buy one version." But this is like saying, "You gotta get both if you want to get everything."

They should either make all the content the same on both or just focus on a single platform and do [the game] only for one platform. I think that's what you have to do to be fair to the gaming public.

As far as a guest character appearing in one of my games, as you probably know, in DoA4 we had Nicole the Spartan inspired by Halo. When we were doing that, one thing I really felt was that it's a big responsibility to be in charge of taking someone else's work that they've lovingly crafted and try to shoehorn it into your game.

You have to really approach it with respect and delicacy, it's not as easy as it looks. When we were putting the Spartan into DoA4, we were struggling with how to balance her character with the rest of the roster. If you make her the strongest character, then Halo fans are probably going to be upset because it's boring to have one character dominate the others. But if we made her the weakest, they would obviously be upset because she's not supposed to be weak.

It isn't just as simply as throwing it in there, you have to think about it closely. It took a lot of thought and a lot of careful design to figure out exactly where she should fit in with the rest of the characters.

Shack: Have you had the chance to play any of the recent action games, such as Heavenly Sword, No More Heroes, or Devil May Cry 4?

Tomonobu Itagaki: I played the demo for Heavenly Sword and I thought that one thing it did well was showing the weight of the weapon and how the main character swung that heavy weapon with her relatively light frame. You felt the fragility of the main character, I thought it was good animation.

However, I think the overall sum of the game design parts left a little to be desired, so I'll be looking forward to a sequel in that franchise. I haven't played No More Heroes. DMC4 will be out soon, so I'll be sure to play that as well.

Shack: What are your thoughts on developers selling actual downloadable content on Xbox Live versus keys that just unlock content that's already on the game disc?

Tomonobu Itagaki: I think both are equally valid approaches. I believe, of course, that downloading completely new content, for the price, should be the main way to go.

However, there are plenty of people out there, like me, who are older, don't have a lot of time on their hands, they want to see everything a game has to offer but they're not able to put all the time into it. So you're basically saying, "Well, instead of asking you to put X number of hours into a game to see this content, we're going to charge you."

I think that's a valid option for people that are older or don't have as much free time. This industry has been around for over 20 years, it's time that we accept that there are other types of gamers out there. We should be open to all the different possibilities.

When I like something, I say I like it. When I don't like something, I say I don't like it. So you'll know I'm speaking the truth when I say I like games like Ace Combat 6 for Xbox 360 from Namco. And I like unlocking new planes in that game, but I don't have time to jump through all the hoops and do everything that's required to unlock a game. So if they offer to allow me to unlock a game for however number of Microsoft Points, I would take that.

Shack: What about when the content is on the disc but can only be accessed through an Xbox Live purchase, not through regular gameplay?

Tomonobu Itagaki: That's worse. That's awful. Games like that should cease to exist from this planet. Are there games like that?

Shack: Yes, many. Namco Bandai's Beautiful Katamari and Frontier Groove's Japanese-only fish tank simulator AquaZone, just to name a few.

Tomonobu Itagaki: That's not very beautiful, is it?

An Xbox 360 exclusive, Team Ninja's Ninja Gaiden II is slated for release sometime this year.