Passionate to work alongside Xbox once again
It looks like there’s a new gun in town. Charismatic producer Tomonobu Itagaki, creator of fighting franchise Dead or Alive and the head honcho behind the modern Ninja Gaiden titles, has announced that he has formed his own studio – Itagaki Games.
The news was revealed in an excerpt from a recent interview between Itagaki and Bloomberg, which focused on the 20th anniversary of Xbox. Itagaki Games will exist as its own endeavor, and is not connected with studios such as Koei Tecmo, Valhalla, or Team Ninja, with which Itagaki has been closely associated in the past.
In the interview, (which you can check out on Facebook), Itagaki noted how comfortable he felt when working alongside Microsoft/Xbox in the early ’00s, specifically on Xbox launch title Dead or Alive 3. In the interview, Itagaki also expressed pleasure at the possibility of collaborating with the industry giant once again.
“All the main Xbox team, including Seamus Blackley, Ed Fries, Kevin Bachus, their leader Robbie Bach and George Peckham who often played golf with me, provided full support on me,” remembers Itagaki. “I visited Redmond once every two months, and they introduced me a lot of tools and support that would help speed up game development […] If they reach out to me, it will be an honor for me.”
Left to his own devices, it will be interesting to see what Itagaki and his team have in store for the new generation of gaming. Now in the driving seat, Itagaki fans could see a run of releases that stand up against the producer’s past successes such as Dead or Alive 4 or Ninja Gaiden Black. So fingers crossed, lest we forget The Devil’s Third also exists.
Tomonobu Itagaki establishes Itagaki Games [Gematsu / Facebook]