Gamasutra Q&A: Spectrobes Producers On Creating A Game-Specific Disney IP

There's a first time for everything -- even for major companies like Disney Interactive Studios. Next month, it launches Spectrobes: Beyond the Portals, the second game in the publisher's monster-collecting RPG series -- its first franchise not based on any existing Disney works.

The Spectrobes IP was created explicitly for the international video game market as a collaboration between Disney's American and Japanese offices. Development has been handled by independent Japanese studio Jupiter (The World Ends With You).

Though the first game sold over a million units -- an uncommon feat for a third-party Nintendo DS title -- it underperformed on its home turf of Japan, as quality assurance lead Tim FitzRandolph told Gamasutra in a recent interview, and the franchise is being essentially "relaunched" in Japan with the followup.