Q&A: Namco Bandai's 'Idol' masters

The Idol Master, an arcade game that debuted in Japan last year, puts players in the roll of a wet-behind-the-ears producer trying to groom the next big pop singer for stardom. One of its most notable features is its communication system, whereby players' virtual prima donnas would send e-mails to players' real-life cell phones.

Weekly Famitsu recently talked to producer Yozo Sakagami and director Akihiro Ishihara about Idol Master's success in arcades--and the newly unveiled Xbox 360 version, which is about 40 percent complete.

The concept for The Idol Master arcade game, Ishihara said, emerged from his desire to attract people to arcades to play every day. Although not a bonafide dating simulation, the game uses similar emotional buttons to grab players, he said. "We have a system by which the player's idol sends him e-mail asking him to come to the arcade at specific times," he said. "The player may think it's a pain, but they go anyway. Little by little, they start to actually want to meet their idols. ... In a sense, they develop a crush on their girl."

Ishihara hopes that this aspect will be magnified in the home version. "I want these 'crushes' the players have on their idols to mature," he said. "The player will start to really 'love' their idols if they have an environment that lets them foster this love over a long period. That is one of the reasons we started developing the home-version."

On the other hand, in considering how to port The Idol Master to a home system, Sakagami said that keeping the wall of professionalism between the virtual idol and the player is important--it is this separation that keeps players coming back for more.

"This is the difference between Idol Master and other games--the feeling of distance from the character," Sakagami said. "The girl is striving to become a top idol. The player is trying to become a top producer."

There will, however, be differences between the home and arcade versions. The arcade game uses a touch screen that allows the user to play a number of minigames, but these minigames have been tweaked for the Xbox 360's controller. Another difference will be the length of the game. Sakagami explains that in the arcade, the player had just a few days to produce his or her idol, so they tended to play it safe when making decisions.

"There is actually a very rich range of scenarios for each character," he said. "However, [in the arcade version] because the players try to avoid failure and mistakes so much, they don't get to see all of them. So that the player can enjoy the scenarios for each character, we added the 'One Year Producer' mode," he said, which allows players to continue playing for an entire calendar year.

The graphics are getting a face-lift, too. "We've actually remade the models from scratch, including the motion from the arcade game." The arcade Idol Master was highly praised for its involved mobile-phone e-mail system. While not going into specifics, Ishihara said that fans can expect it to be incorporated into the Xbox 360 Idol Master, in one form or another. Sakagami confirmed that the game will feature new songs, including "Go My Way." He also told fans to expect new characters, although he did not say how many or who they might be.