The ever-trusty Edge Online has posted an interview with Bandai producer Uchiyama Daisuke on the new phase of the .hack PlayStation 2 'network RPG' series, and some interesting points are raised.

Daisuke comments of the 'relative' U.S. success of the game: "I always thought that, in the US, people liked simple stories like in Hollywood movies. The American hero wins at the end after a fight and save the beautiful woman or the world. I was sure that the first .hack would fail, that people in the US would find it too difficult or disorienting."

Yet he concludes: "People understood what we wanted to deliver. And in the end it sold more than 700,000 copies in the US." Of course, this was over quite a few titles, but hey, for iterations using the same engine, it really _is_ quite impressive - a sign of episodic success to come?