A recent interview with Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks producer Shaun Himmerick provides nothing entirely new in regards to that game, but the folks over at Games Radar shot Shaun with two questions that give comments on two of Midway's upcoming Mortal Kombat Projects in the works:

Is there going to be another MK fighting game for the current generation of consoles?
Hmmmm...I don't know what we're specifically doing current gen, I don't know if we've made that decision. Probably not, but I don't know. I shouldn't say.

How's the PSP version of MK Deception coming along?
It's coming along all right. Current issues are that Konquest mode is very difficult because there are fewer buttons on PSP and we previously used all the controller buttons, so we've had to do some modifications to that, and there have been some streaming issues. There are still some tech hurdles to get over, but we're solving those.

The question of future Mortal Kombat development on current-gen hardware for the Sony Playstation 2 and Microsoft Xbox continues to raise question on where exactly things stand. News first broke about Mortal Kombat 7 over a year ago when CEO David Zucker made comment at an event in August 2004 that the next fighting game was indeed being developed for the Playstation 3, Xbox 2, and a wireless platform. However, fast forward to our coverage of E3 from this past May, and you get a different story. Ed Boon went on record during our fan interview that the decission was actually up in the air and that both options were being studied. So which is it? From a story back in May shortly after E3 from GameSpot, David Zucker was quoted to say that Midway Games would have titles ready to launch with the Sony Playstion 3, however would not have titles ready to launch for the November release of Xbox 360:

But just because Midway won't have any next-gen games ready in time for the launch of Microsoft's sleek new console does not mean they are eschewing the platform. "Midway is fully supporting the Xbox 360 and we have games in development at all of our internal studios," a rep told GameSpot.

In fact, contradicting reports on the Web that it is holding back on development until the Xbox 360 has a large enough user base, Midway has several projects in the works for the next-gen console. "We have no less than seven Xbox 360 games currently in development in our internal studios targeted for release in 2006-8," a Midway executive emphasized to GameSpot today.

Midway's only official title announced for next-generation to our knowledge is John Woo's Stranglehold, which we were treated to a trailer while at Midway's Summer Gamers' Day last Thursday. Could Midway's hold-out approach on releasing titles on next-generation hardware keep the next Mortal Kombat fighting game on current hardware? Though no official word has been spoken since last year, we'd expect from the fact that they are even discussing both possibilities, that Mortal Kombat 7 might likely end up on current-generation hardware after all. We'll try to get official word whatever the case soon, however expect mums the word from Midway's front on any future Mortal Kombat development projects at least until after Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks debuts next month. We'll keep you posted.