We recently had a chance to ask a few questions of Brent Fox, Art Director and partial company owner over at Wahoo Studios/NinjaBee about what his thoughts were on the future of their game developments and how they first got started in the business.

NinjaBee is a pretty big contributor to the Xbox Live Arcade and has many downloadable games like Cloning Clyde, Band of Bugs, Outpost Kaolki X, etc. also available for PC.

We broke this up into two parts to make it an easier read, expect the second part tomorrow.

- How was NinjaBee started?

At Wahoo Studios we had done a lot of development work for publishers. In fact, that was really all we had ever done. We had an idea for a game so we did what we always did and made a demo to pitch to publishers. It wasn’t the type of game that was typically found on a console. We talked to a lot of developers and it seemed to be too risky for all of these publishers. We had a friend suggest that we make it a downloadable PC game and sell it on our own. We spent the time to convert it to a PC game and, without knowing anything about the downloadable market, released our first PC game.

We needed a web site and we also wanted to start a new brand for our independently developed games. The funny things is, at first, we were a little motivated in creating a new name because we didn’t want the big publishers to view us only as an independent developer. Now the NinjaBee name might be better known than Wahoo Studios. Our first independent game, Outpost Kaloki didn’t make us a lot of money on the PC. We make games but we aren’t great marketers.

Our big break came when in one of our discussions with Microsoft before the launch of the Xbox 360 they described the opportunity of Xbox Live Arcade. We believed in it. We put a lot of the company’s money and time into making Outpost Kaloki X. We even started work on Cloning Clyde before launch. Our hunch was right and now it seems that everyone wants in.

- Where does the company name come from? Being a fellow company with Ninja in the title.

Well, as you obviously know, Ninjas are really cool and what insect would represent great games better than a bee?

Actually, we spent a lot of time choosing a name. We came up with a list of requirements. The name had to be memorable, easy to spell and the site had to be available. We liked the idea of two short words together. We came up with two lists of words and ran them through a program that would check the domain availability. We then looked over this list, narrowed it down and voted on the best name.

- What is it like to develop downloadable content for consoles?

Pretty cool. There are a ton of things that are great about developing downloadable console games. We have been making console games for a long time but downloadable games have a whole new set of advantages. We like short development cycles. It is really nice no to have to work on the same game for several years but instead move on to something else exciting after eight or nine months. We get to use the power of the console but we are still able to make smaller games. We get to focus on fun game-play. We also get a chance to make some of the more innovative and risky games. These are games that might scare away a traditional publisher but that we still believe in. The best thing is that they are our games. We get to have much more creative control. We can’t blame anyone else but we also get the bigger reward when these games are successful.

- After doing both PC and Xbox 360 titles, which platform do you prefer to develop for?

We make games on both platforms and each one has its own advantages. However, there are some really great things about console development and the Xbox 360 is one of the nicest systems we’ve worked on. The tools are advanced, the hardware is powerful, the technical support is good, and Live features are fun to play with.