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Haunt house: a visit with NanaOn-Sha
Just before TGS this year, I paid a visit to NanaOn-Sha's small studio in Tokyo's Aoyama neighborhood. The majority of the tiny studio is the meeting and testing room seen in our gallery below, where I spoke to founder Masaya Matsuura and director of development Dewi Tanner, and played a demo of the studio's upcoming XBLA game, Haunt. Despite the relatively cozy surroundings, there's room for an impressive array of Parappa and Um Jammer Lammy merchandise. Was the Lammy pillow really something that was marketed? And just outside the door, there's (barely) room for all the awards NanaOn-Sha's games have received. Improbably, there's also room for a bathtub in the small studio, something that Matsuura told me has been useful in the impossibly hot and humid summer Tokyo's experienced. "Especially this summer," he noted, "Japan has difficulty using electric power" as a result of conservation efforts following the March earthquake. They offered to let me use the bathtub, but there will unfortunately be no Joystiq review, as I declined. Past the break, Matsuura and Tanner speak about their studio, partnerships with Western companies, Haunt, and not baths.%Gallery-134204%
Parappa the Rapper could return via new business models or Vita
Parappa the Rapper hasn't been heard from since the PS2's Parappa the Rapper 2 -- unless you count the Japan-only cartoon, or the PSP port of the first game. However, creator Masaya Matsuura told me during a pre-TGS meeting that the flat, self-doubting puppy remains in his thoughts. "We always think about the possibility of remaking or rebuilding or making sequels," Matsuura said. He told me that he prefers handheld platforms to consoles for rhythm games, because the built-in screens reduce the risk of latency between the controller input and the on-screen display. And thus the PlayStation Vita represents a "good chance" for him to revisit his signature series.
