Hudson is moving full throttle into digital distribution with import TurboGrafx-16 games on the Virtual Console and plenty of Bomberman. I had a chance to ask Sabine Duvall, Vice President of Product Development at Hudson Entertainment, a few questions about their plans starting with something I’ve been personally wondering, where is Ys Book I&II?
Will we see Ys Book I&II will we see this on US Wiis? Can you give us an estimate on the time?
You know, Ys is one of our most-requested titles, along with Bonk and Military Madness (which have come out on the Virtual Console, and people are still asking for them on other platforms). We’d love to make our fans happy, so we’re still evaluating if it’s right to bring Ys over.
It's great that Hudson had a chance to bring Battle Lode Runner and DoReMi Fantasy: Milon's DokiDoki Adventure outside of Japan. What other Virtual Console imports can we look forward to in the future?
Good question. There’s a lot of other great games that didn’t make it over to the States. Let me answer your question with another question: What games would you like to see? Drop by our forums and let us know. If we see that there’s a certain game a lot of American gamers would like brought over, we’ll look into it.
Hudson announced Star Solider R for North America, but there wasn't a price. How much will it cost?
We’ll release that information soon.
Recently, Hudson Japan announced two Bomberman games for the Wii. Is Hudson planning on releasing either Bomberman game in North America?
Bomberman has worldwide appeal and is clearly beloved by US gamers, as the success of Bomberman LIVE showed us. Any game we release in Japan is always evaluated for a US release, so I’m sure you’ll see more Bomberman in the US in the future.
Most of the digital download news from Hudson has been about WiiWare. What are Hudson's future plans for Xbox Live Arcade?
We’ve seen great success with the two titles we’ve put out so far, Bomberman LIVE and Omega Five. We’re very happy with our experience on the platform so far and definitely have plans to release more games for it in the future.
So far the Playstation 3 is the only console without an online Bomberman game. Does Hudson have plans to develop Bomberman or any other games for the PlayStation Network?
Bomberman is perfect for any platform, especially any one with online multiplayer capabilities. One of Hudson’s strengths is making fun, easy to pick up games that appeal to all sorts of people and these kinds of games work on any platform.
Is Hudson planning to release more casual titles like Table Games for the Wii or the series of Nintendo DS puzzle games (Jigsaw Puzzle/ Illustlogic) outside of Japan?
With the increasing interest in casual games here in the US, we’re certainly thinking about releasing more casual-oriented games. We will pay special attention if those games will have global appeal or if we should release them to specific territories only.
Images courtesy of Hudson.
