Microsoft Game Studios UK's Phil Spencer spoke to Develop magazine about the lessons the company is taking from Rare's scaling down of Viva Pinata. While it might seem strange to put one of their flagship titles on a competitor's system, the DS is a great platform on which to learn about casual and shorter games, while also making piles of money.

Speaking about Rare's previous handheld experience, Spencer said the following: "When we acquired the studio that expertise was there and the team was there. As Microsoft we had a discussion – do we want to build that expertise? We decided yes. Not so much because we need to support Nintendo – their platform will do fine without us – but because it is important for us to build that experience as a publisher and game developer and understand what it means to build lightweight, maybe shorter session experiences, and maintain that design innovation."

Where does Microsoft hope to apply the lessons learned from Viva Pinata? Not the DS! As it turns out, Microsoft has their own platform for small-scale games. We don't know exactly how a portable version of a full-size Xbox game translates to Xbox Live Arcade development, but if it drives the company to experiment further, it's a good thing.

[Via Next-Gen]