Tomonobu Itagaki, the developer responsible for the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden franchises at Tecmo, has announced his return to video games with the formation of a brand new studio – Itagaki Games.
Itagaki-san departed Tecmo back in 2008 after the release of Ninja Gaiden II during a very public falling out with the company. He then established Valhalla Game Studios, which released the critically mauled Devil’s Third for Wii U, before stepping down from his role as director.
Here’s what he had to say on Facebook about his latest move, in which he makes it pretty clear he’s interested in teaming up with Microsoft again after working closely with the Xbox maker for the Ninja Gaiden reboot.
For the past four years, I’ve been teaching job to foster juniors, but now I feel like I want to make a game again and just established a company for that purpose.
I would start again with questions that I made to [original Xbox designer] Seamus [Blackley] two decades ago. Back then, I asked him, ‘are you confident that you will beat PS2?’ and he said, ‘Yes. Xbox is called Project Midway and I’ll gain the supremacy with it.’
That’s why I trusted him and actually created Xbox-exclusive games for about ten years. 20 years have passed since then, and I established my own company, Itagaki Games, which is not Tecmo, nor Valhalla. I know Microsoft is still aggressive. If they reach out to me, it will be an honor for me.
As for what Itagaki will work on at his new studio, we’ll have to wait and see as it’s still very early days. Hopefully whatever he decides to do will come to PS5, too.
In the meantime, there’s been whispers about a new Ninja Gaiden game at Tecmo Koei, but nothing has been announced yet.
[Source – VGC]