Satoru Iwata sits down to interview Akihiro Hino from Level-5, the company behind Professor Layton.

Level-5 has quickly gained a favourable reputation over the last few years. They are perhaps best known for Professor Layton in the West but with Inazuma Eleven and Ni No Kuni slowly making their way over to Europe their popularity will no doubt grow. The latest in the 'Iawta Asks' series sees the Nintendo President chatting to Akihiro Hino from Level-5.

Mr. Hino discusses what titles inspired him to work in video games, primarily Dragon Quest, and how he worked towards his current position at Level-5. Akihiro Hino created Level-5 himself and has since established a stable and successful games development company and Satoru Iwata delves into what this process is like, which will certainly be interesting for anyone who wishes to work within the industry.

My objective is, first of all, to liven up the game industry, and my goal is to create a new game franchise every year. So the year after we created Professor Layton and the Curious Village, we made the Inazuma Eleven series, and after that it was Ni no Kuni and The Little Battlers. I feel as though, if we don't keep putting out new games that way, the game world really will be finished. So, while we create new games as our thesis, since we also need to stabilize as a company, we create series games as well.

Satoru Iwata and Akihiro Hino also discuss what role the Brain Training games had in helping the Professor Layton series become so popular as they both challenge players' brains in a variety of ways. Professor Layton titles feature different packaging in Europe and this, as well as the series' success in Europe, is commented on by Mr. Hino. He even comments, "honestly, the sales of the Professor Layton series in Europe surprised us, too."

The discussion concludes with a conversation about the 3DS and what Level-5 has planned for the upcoming console. So far they already have three titles in development for the console: Professor Layton and the Mask of Miracle, Inazuma Eleven and Fantasy Life. "I wanted to be able to supply good software at an early stage, so I thought about what sort of things it would be nice to have for the Nintendo 3DS system and came up with this product lineup."

The full interview can be found on the Nintendo website and this is apparently the first in a series of 'Iwata Asks' that sees Satoru Iwata chat to third party developers so stay tuned for more!