Image from Joystiq.com

Atlus USA first landed on this gamer's radar with a couple of excellent GameBoy Advance titles, Double Dragon and River City Ransom. Both enhanced the original games in thoughtful ways. Since then, Atlus has gone on to become a beacon of quirky games, often oddball Japanese titles that Atlus localizes and publishes here in the United States. Izuna: Legend of the Unemployed Ninja (DS) is one such example, as is the Trauma Center series (DS and Wii).

Here's some excerpts from a recent interview with Joystiq, with my comments attached:

On Atlus publishing "niche" titles:

Aram Jabbari: How "niche" or "outside the box" a game is alone rarely determines whether it will be picked up. A number of factors, from the quality of the game to how marketable it will be for a North American audience, all contribute to the final decision. Of course, very often it just so happens that the titles that do the most things right are also the ones that try something new.

My comments:

Stop calling our game niche! Don't you know that suppresses sales!

On whether or not Baroque, a upcoming RPG being released on Wii and PS2, is going to be yet another "PS2 to Wii" conversion without many added features on Wii:

AJ: Baroque will not be a radically different game on the Wii, although it will benefit from a solid set of enhancements. The Wii release is not a ploy to trap fans into buying both versions, but rather to make it easier for gamers who may only have one platform or the other.

Yes, it looks like a straight port, but with progressive scan and widescreen support. At least the game looks cool, though. Let's hope for a $40 price point.

Read the whole interview here.