IGN took some time on PSP's 2nd anniversary to ask several developers what they thought the future held for PSP. Here are some of the more interesting excerpts:

Ready at Dawn (devs of Daxter and the upcoming PSP God of War)

"I think it's bringing a whole new crowd to handheld gaming, people that would have never played the type of games on previous handhelds."

SCEA's SOCOM Team

"The PSP is a great platform, but very few publishers and developers are creating games that really take advantage of the platform. I really hope that this will change. We have many more great PSP games coming out and I hope you look forward to them. "

Continued after the jump ...

Stephen Bailey takes you through the latest Japanese import releases every Sunday in our new feature.

The PSP allows you to play import games without having to solder toaster parts to it and hook it to a car battery. This ease of use surely deserves to be rewarded with a list of the import games of the week.

Gunpey-R

We may have had Gunpey on our PSPs for a while, but Japan is just getting their version of the puzzle music game. As previously reported, this is probably the version to get simply because of the sexy box cover. If the cover does sway you into purchasing it, know that the game has the style you'd expect from a Q Entertainment release and the gameplay consists of flipping lines to connect them to other lines (it's more exciting than it sounds). For the curious, the "R" stands for "rebirth". This makes sense since the whole Gunpey thing is nothing new in Japan.

Nobunaga no Yabou: Shouseiroku (Koei the Best)

This is the re-release of this game as a "Best" version, which in Japan just means the game sold well. That or they're re-releasing it to try and get it back on store shelves. This is a Koei history strategy game, so it's likely that it isn't a good import idea if you don't speak japanese. On the other hand, it never came out in english, so if you're hardcore or brave enough, import away.

And that's it for this week, but don't fall into a lack of import depression, we'll have more import games next week

1UP: How did it feel when you left Sega? Was it like "We're gonna do this and make our own company" like The Three Musketeers?

TM: Huh?

This week's 1up cover story focuses all on Q? Entertainment, the minds behind Lumines and the upcoming Every Extend Extra. You'll learn interesting tidbits from today's interview, like how Lumines was created in a karaoke room. You'll also learn how the team wanted to portray something artistic on the PSP's beautiful 16x9 screen. Your fears about short battery life in the upcoming video-intensive Lumines II will be relieved: it seems like the video won't cause too much of a hit on battery life. Your thumbs will get weary knowing that the maximum possible score in Lumines II is now 10 times higher. Finally, you can also read about Q? Entertainment's plan to save the world with downloadable music packs:

TM: Yeah, a Relief pack. Within a couple of weeks, we could make a specialized pack -- maybe it costs $5 to download, but it would benefit the victims [of disasters].

There's a ton of really interesting info in the interview. In fact, there are 7 pages to read through, so you better get started now.

A press release issued this morning revealed that Buena Vista Games (which, considering its connections, could possibly be referred to as The Happiest Game Publisher on Earth™) will act as publisher for the upcoming puzzle game Lumines 2. The first Lumines title, created by Tetsuya Mizuguchi and developed by Q Entertainment, was published by Ubisoft and Bandai. BVG will take over the reins for the sequel as well as three other titles from the developer: Every Extend Extra (PSP), Lumines Plus (PS2), and Meteos: Disney Edition (DS). The titles are due to land softly (but will still carry big sticks) on store shelves this Fall.

[Thanks John]