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Former Black Rock boss Nick Baynes has opened a new studio and aiming for the "fertile middle ground" between blockbusters and smartphone games.

In an interview with GamesTM magazine, the Roundcube founder said the studio, currently a team of about ten people, would not be aiming at the triple-A or $30million boxed game markets, as this was “suicidal” for start-ups.

He added that it is also “depressing” for the industry to see that people coming out of studios such as Black Rock or Bizarre are forming two to three man teams to create iOS games instead of boxed games as “it feels like a lot of really, really top class developers are skipping it.”

He said Roundcube will instead be focusing on the “fertile middle ground”, and are looking at creating games for the PSN and Xbox Live.

Baynes also added “We’ve got one concept that we really believe in which is being designed for Vita.”

He cautioned however that with iPhone games available for 69p, would customers be prepared to fork out £35 for portable games, especially for the 3DS.

With Black Rock being famous for racing games such as Split/Second, Baynes said they were “naturally looking at things like racing” for their first game but were “not exclusive” to the genre.

Far from aiming being a small outfit, the Roundcube boss said he estimated there would be about 30 or 40 employees “within the next year or two”.