The Japanese creative is delighted to be able to return to work for Microsoft consoles in the future. The new team will have members from Tecmo.
Tomonobu Itagaki, veteran video game designer, father of Dear or Alive and responsible for the revival of Dead or Alive in 2004, has founded a new studio: Itagaki Games. After resigning from all his positions at Valhalla Game Studios in 2017, from which the ill-fated Devil’s Third (Wii U, 2015) arose, the Japanese creative undertakes a new project in his professional career with the desire to even reach Xbox consoles.
The information has been known through the personal Facebook account of Tomonobu Itagaki himself, who has published a complete interview recently granted to the medium Bloomberg; with permission from said medium, which celebrated the 20 years of Xbox in the market.
Ninja Gaiden II, one of the great beneficiaries of the backward compatibility of Xbox One X (also in Xbox Series X)
Tomonobu Itagaki, delighted to be able to work with Xbox again
“For the last four years I have been teaching juniors to train, but now I feel like I want to make video games again and I have founded a company for that purpose,” he begins by saying. Bloomberg wonders in their meeting that Xbox fans, on the occasion of the brand’s twentieth anniversary, may be interested in knowing this news given the roots that ties both mentioned sagas in their ecosystem. “You can count on me for that. Otherwise, I would not have accepted an interview for this article on Xbox, “he adds.
When asked about a possible purchase by Microsoft, Itagaki laughs and replies that he would be honored to be part of Xbox Game Studios if such an offer existed. The Japanese expert knows that Phil Spencer’s team hopes to continue expanding its range of exclusive studies, but that conversation has not existed, at least for now.
One last point of interest in this interview comes from the Itagaki Games’ own team of workers, which will be made up of talented developers from both Tecmo and Valhalla Game Studios.
Tomonobu Itagaki has a long history in the digital entertainment sector. He started working at Tecmo in 1992 as a graphic programmer, but it wasn’t until 1996 that he released Dead or Alive and sealed his name in the history of the medium. After his departure from Tecmo in 2008 (what we now understand as Koei Tecmo), he became a founding partner of Valhalla Game Studios in 2010. Now, in 2021, a new stage begins of which it is unknown what and how his first video game will be .
