In a lengthy interview with PlayStation World, Nippon Ichi Software's Souhei Niikawa talked about Disgaea 3 and his company's plan for the future. The 34-year old native of Osaka, who serves as head of the company's development division, has overseen the development of Disgaea 3 in his role as the game's producer. Since Disgaea 3 was the company's first PlayStation 3 project, it took developers some time to get used to the new hardware. According to Niikawa, seven months were spent doing basic research. Afterwards, development of the actual game took less than a year, though. Nippon Ichi Software wanted to release its first PlayStation 3 title about a year after the system's launch to get used to the new development environment. Niikawa acknowledged that PlayStation 2-based development would have been smoother, but emphasized the importance of getting used to the new high-spec hardware early on.

Currently, Nippon Ichi Software was working on various adventure titles. The company apparently is also thinking about expanding into genres other than RPGs and adventure games. Last but not least, Niikawa asked fans to look forward to the announcement of various new titles for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable in the future.

Disgaea 3 has been available in Japan since January 31st. During the first two weeks since its release, it has sold about 70,000 copies.

• PS World (Japanese)