Now that Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune — undoubtedly one of the best games available on PS3 — has been out the door for a while and proven to be a hit among both critics and gamers, we had an opportunity to have a few questions answered by Evan Wells, Co-President of Naughty Dog.

Metacritic shows 89 out of 100 as the average score for Uncharted. Overall, how happy are you with the critics’ response and do you think some sites have been overly critical with their reviews? Here at Naughty Dog we’re confident that Uncharted is the best game we’ve made yet. The comments we keep getting from reviewers who have played through the entire game is how much they felt like they were starring in a cinematic experience. So we are very pleased with the critical response that we have received. Particularly that the scores have been so consistent. There really hasn’t been a single reviewer who hasn’t enjoyed the game and the vast majority of the scores have been 9’s or above.

You’ve said that Drake’s Fortune was always planned as a first game in a new franchise from the start. Where are you with the second game at the moment - is Drake’s Fortune 2 already in production? What are your plans? Uncharted was definitely designed to be a franchise, so this game is just the first in an ongoing series of adventures. We’ve already started having meetings to see what worked best in production and finding the areas that need improvement. We’ve also only just started brainstorming on ideas for our next project. Nothing has been solidified yet.

Uncharted is one of those games that people who own a competitor’s console are also interested in. Any plans to go multi-platform or can you vow that the franchise will stay a PlayStation3-exclusive? Right now, we don’t think that a PSP version is in Naughty Dog’s future. We are trying to keep our focus on one platform – the PS3. The PlayStation 3 is a complex yet powerful system. We could not pull off the rich, seamless world of Uncharted on any other console. Because the system is so powerful, it means that tapping into that power requires great engineering efforts. We’re lucky that Naughty Dog has some of the best programmers in the industry. I can also tell you that as we’re finishing Uncharted, we’ve found new ways of optimizing our engine to take advantage of the hardware. All of which means that, as beautiful as our game is, there is a lot more in store for the PlayStation 3.

Besides implementing new features when PS3 HOME is released, do you have any plans to release any kind of downloadable content on PlayStation Store? We aren’t planning any downloadable content for Uncharted, but we are planning to take advantage of whatever kind of integration into Home that’s possible.