Falcom on why it decided to support PSP over DS, wants to get closer to Nintendo

Nintendo and Falcom aren’t exactly names that go together. The studio hasn’t done much on Nintendo platforms, which is why it came as a surprise when Ys VIII was announced for Switch earlier this year – courtesy of Nippon Ichi.

In an interview with DenFamiNicoGamer, Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo and founder Masayuki Kato spoke about the misconception that the company hates Nintendo and why it decided to focus on the PSP instead of the DS when the latter system was booming in popularity.

Siliconera provides the following translation:

Toshihiro Kondo, Falcom President: At the time the Nintendo DS was extremely popular, so there was a flow of all the companies going with DS. After looking at the lineup of games that were selling on DS, we had a bit of a difficult time picturing our products fitting in there. Family-oriented games and games focusing on a younger audience were the ones becoming hits, after all.

In the end, the reason we decided to go with the PSP was because we determined that PSP users and Falcom fans simply overlapped. Although it was from there that people started saying “Falcom hates Nintendo.” [laughs]

Masayuki Kato, Falcom Founder: That’s right, always from a certain message board. [laughs]

Toshihiro Kondo: It’s not that we hate them, rather, we’ve always been wanting to become closer to them. [laughs]

When the DS was booming, I went with former president Yamasaki (former Falcom president Shinji Yamasaki) to greet them in Kyoto. At the time we even had their approval for development.

Rather than it being about console wars, I truly felt that “having released games on PSP” rejuvenated Falcom fans.

Toshihiro Kondo: As a result, I believe we felt that “it went well.” However, when we visited Kyoto that time, we went with newly written plans for a command-based RPG type of Ys game. It’s a shame that we couldn’t make it happen…

Kondo added that online flaming was still taking place just prior to the launch of Ys VIII on Switch. In fact, publisher NIS received a phone call from Nintendo asking if they and Falcom were okay.  But Kondo said, “we didn’t think much of it.”