Sham's note: It's a rather short interview, and not particularly juicy, but still, fun to know these things. Here's a bit of a translated summary. I've interspersed some more information about Jupiter in here as well to make it a bit worthwhile. 
The president of Jupiter Makoto Nakayama was interviewed about the history of their company, and spoke briefly on collaborating with Square-Enix on Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and The World Ends with You.
Nakayama describes an interest in accumulating in-house expertise at the company, and a deal was struck with Shinji Hashimoto to make the game with Square-Enix who would supervise the project. Hashimoto, a prominent producer and executive producer at Square since 1995, is also the senior vice president of Square-Enix Holdings.
As you might be aware, Shinji Hashimoto proposed the original collaboration between Squaresoft and Disney (as they happened to occupy the same office building in Japan) to make the first Kingdom Hearts game.
Some of the challenges of development included making the game's card-based battle system as well as including a FMV featuing Utada Hikaru's "Simple and Clean" with the GBA cartridge's ROM constraints.
Nakayama states in the interview that Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories project helped solidify the company's direction.
Chain of Memories served as the first collaboration with Square-Enix, then moving on to The World Ends with You. The card-based battle system first featured in CoM served as a basis for the top-screen gameplay in the new TWEwY.
Jupiter also collaborated with Disney Interactive (formerly Buena Vista Games) for Disney Sports Motocross, and Spectrobes games for the Nintendo DS.
Interview: http://www.inside-games.jp/article/2011/11/12/52706.html
The president of Jupiter Makoto Nakayama was interviewed about the history of their company, and spoke briefly on collaborating with Square-Enix on Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories and The World Ends with You.
Nakayama describes an interest in accumulating in-house expertise at the company, and a deal was struck with Shinji Hashimoto to make the game with Square-Enix who would supervise the project. Hashimoto, a prominent producer and executive producer at Square since 1995, is also the senior vice president of Square-Enix Holdings.
As you might be aware, Shinji Hashimoto proposed the original collaboration between Squaresoft and Disney (as they happened to occupy the same office building in Japan) to make the first Kingdom Hearts game.
Some of the challenges of development included making the game's card-based battle system as well as including a FMV featuing Utada Hikaru's "Simple and Clean" with the GBA cartridge's ROM constraints.
Nakayama states in the interview that Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories project helped solidify the company's direction.
Chain of Memories served as the first collaboration with Square-Enix, then moving on to The World Ends with You. The card-based battle system first featured in CoM served as a basis for the top-screen gameplay in the new TWEwY.
Jupiter also collaborated with Disney Interactive (formerly Buena Vista Games) for Disney Sports Motocross, and Spectrobes games for the Nintendo DS.
Interview: http://www.inside-games.jp/article/2011/11/12/52706.html
