In a pre Toyko Game Show 2007 statement by Tecmo’s Team Ninja lead, Tomonobu Itagaki had some choice words with his teams stance on the Xbox 360 and the recently announced Ninja Gaiden 2.

“Our goal with Ninja Gaiden 2 is to create the world’s premier action game, just as DOA4 was the premier fighting game when it was released at the 360’s launch and remains the premier fighting game today. I know that a lot of our fans played the first NG as being a masterpiece and being flawless. However, as a team, we don’t necessarily agree all the time.

When we were creating the original NG for the Xbox, we used all of our power to use the hardware to its fullest, to extract every drop of power from that hardware. As a result, we weren’t able to implement every feature we wanted to. As I look back, there were maybe 10 or 20 features we weren’t able to implement. Now we’re able to present nG2 on xbos 360 next gen hardware. What this means is we’re able to implement features that we couldn’t do before. As you can imagine, there’s no greater thrill for a developer. Please enjoy the world’s best action game running on the world’s most powerful machine, Xbox 360.”

So, how does this change anything in Japan? Chances are it won’t change a thing. The crowds of Japanese on lookers may have been jumping up and down in excitement from what was said, but if it doesn’t translate into Japanese gamers giving the 360 a chance then it’s just a great statement from one of the only truly rock star like developers around.

Tecmo’s Itagaki Makes Bold Statement [XboxFamily]

-William “thewilleffect” Bell-