Tecmo is a publisher that has gradually built up its reputation on the back of quality software -- but it only had one superstar developer: Tomonobu Itagaki, the founder of its Team Ninja studio.
Of course, as everyone knows by now, in June this year Itagaki resigned from and sued the company. As everyone also knows, games are not made by one man: they're made by a competent team of individuals. Bearing both of these facts in mind, what's the future of Team Ninja?
To answer that question, Gamasutra sat down with Team Ninja producers Hitoshi Hasegawa, who has taken over leadership of the team that created the Dead Or Alive fighting game series, and Yosuke Hayashi, director of Ninja Gaiden Sigma (Team Ninja's other major franchise) for the PlayStation 3.
The conversation took in an evaluation of how the team has been evolving post-Itagaki, its views on the platforms at play in the current space, and -- after a Tokyo Game Show at which the studio showed no new games -- what the future holds in store for the high-profile developer.
Microsoft just posted the third quarter of its 2024 fiscal financial results. The software maker made $61.9 billion in revenue and a net income of $21.9 billion during Q3. Revenue is up 17 percent, and net income has increased by 20 percent.
Xbox content + services up 62% while hardware down 31%... seems about right with the way they tout you don't need the hardware to play. People can play on their phones or smart tv or other means. I don't hardly play on my consoles directly since getting devices like the logitech g-cloud and ps portal. Which is to also say I have been playing more digital than physical because of these devices.
Too expensive hardware when others offer the same or more for less? Good work, Green Team.
"Despite some early successes for Xbox games on rival platforms, Xbox hardware is down by a massive 31 percent this quarter."
"Without Activision Blizzard, Microsoft’s overall gaming revenue would have actually declined this quarter."
"Xbox content and services would have only been up a single percent without Activision Blizzard..."
"It looks like next quarter is going to be a similar story for gaming at Microsoft, too."
That is crazy... so A/B/K is carrying the whole Xbox gaming.
Oh and Microsoft will be fine. Windows, Office and Cloud are growing with each pc purchase.
As of right now, there are no monopolies in the games industry, and for the sake of the medium as a whole, they never should either.
And yet the biggest tech companies in America are essentially that. They buy up all the small comps only to kill them off and steal what they have, and if they can't buy em they bleed them to death.
They buy IPs not talent. That's why these buyouts never work and the IPs die. Right now it's too expensive to develop games - but I expect that to shift maybe as AI tools can make it easier. The best games have been indie games for awhile as big developers fuck their ips to death with "games as a service" -
INDIE Live Expo, Japan’s premiere online digital showcase series , will debut never-before-seen games & content updates across more than 100 titles on May 25th.
This is good news. Hopefully they will help Japan jump into next-gen. Although Itagaki is probably the actual Les Grossman, I hope they can manage without him.
"For any developer that's been working on all of the platforms that are available today, I think they would agree that the PlayStation 3 is the most powerful system out there," he added, also touting Sony's top-notch developer support.
'nuff said.
gt5p to mgs to lbp to resistance. All technically pioneering in one way of the other. Ill add naruto ns in there for having anime realistic graphics which no other game has managed as of yet