What’s the reasoning behind locking downloadable content to the country the game was bought from? Many importers have been stopped from buying U2 DLC, especially in EU regions.

That’s a question our publisher, SCEE, is best suited to speak to, as they are responsible for setting standards and policies in the EU region.

With so many awards, will we see a Game of the Year edition, perhaps with DLC included?

That’s an option we would certainly be interested in exploring, but we don’t have any announcements at this time.

Uncharted 2 is widely considered to be one of the best looking console games, if not the best. How do you intend to retain your studio’s title for best console graphics?

The overall team at Naughty Dog is tireless at trying to push the boundaries of everything they do, from game design to technology to art. We’ve always pushed technology and our capabilities with each iteration of our engines and games, and that’s a philosophy we continue to follow going forward.

Are you working on any new technology? Best water in Uncharted 1, best ice in Uncharted 2, best ‘what’ in your next game?

One of the things about having a studio full of highly motivated and passionate people is that we’re constantly developing new technology and making engine improvements. However, we don’t have anything currently we’re ready to reveal.

How about destructible environments? Or underwater levels?

Anything is possible! We’ll let you know when we’re ready to discuss what’s cooking for the future.

What was your biggest challenge in the making of Uncharted 2? The train?

The whole thing? It sure felt like it was the whole thing. Each aspect of the game presented its own challenges given that we were constantly pushing the limits of what we could do and what our technology let us do. Looking back, this was one of the most challenging projects to complete on every level in Naughty Dog history. That’s one of the reasons you’ve heard us always thanking all the Dogs and especially our families and significant others when we were accepting awards earlier this year – we put everything we had into making UNCHARTED 2.

You must be using a lot of PS3 power in your games, how much more do you think you can get out of the system through engine refinement?

This is difficult to quantify at this point, but it’s very clear to us that there are still more ways we can optimize our engine and introduce new technology innovations. There are still engine-related projects that some of our programmers didn’t get around to working on or implementing. There’s definitely a good number of ways left for us to make really cool things happen on the engine level.

Was making Uncharted 2 harder or easier than Drake’s Fortune?

How do you compare? They each had their unique set of challenges; it’s almost apples to oranges. With UNCHARTED: Drake’s Fortune we were not only developing a game but also building a next-gen engine from scratch at the same time. That’s a pretty challenging scenario. On the other hand, with UNCHARTED 2 we did have an engine built, but we had a ton of ambitious optimizations and additions planned, not to mention the more massive scope of our environments and sheer volume of cinematics. Both projects required tireless effort from the Dogs, just in different ways – we’re extremely grateful to all the hard work everyone put it to ship those games.

Could we see the next Naughty Dog game in 3D?

3D is an interesting technology, especially given how well it’s been recently implemented in the cinema and all the support it’s getting in the industry. We’re extremely fortunate to have the PS3 be a platform that can provide us with the power and option to implement 3D in future projects. What we may do with this technology depends on how it fits into the story we want to do, so we haven’t made any decisions at this time. Generally speaking, it is an exciting technology to see come to fruition in the home, as it opens a variety of ways developers can innovate with their narrative and with their games.

How about Naughty Dog working with the new PS3 motion controller, Move?

Pretty much the same thing as with 3D technology – we’re extremely fortunate to have a platform in the PS3 that can provide an option to use these new tools to allow developers and storytellers to interact with their audiences in new and compelling ways. Utilizing the Move is certainly an option we would consider – again, if it fits in with our narrative and design goals.

What do you think of Move in comparison to say the Wii and Microsoft’s Project Natal?

Overall, we’re really glad to see the industry push towards new ways to engage and broaden their audiences. We feel the Move is an extremely robust, accurate method of interacting with gamers – it will be awesome to see how many of the top development teams on the PS3 use and innovate with the Move when it is released later this year.

And so, that’s the end of Part 1 from our interview with Naughty Dog – make sure to keep your eyes on PlayStation University for the rest of the interview in the coming days.

You can now find part 2 of our interview with Naughty Dog here, where our chat travels from talk about what’s next for the Uncharted series, the Uncharted movie, the possibility of the Dogs’ making another Jak game, and what they’ve been playing.