http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/news/39065/Dead-or-Alive-C...For-Unpaid-Royalties
http://xbox360.ign.com/articles/878/878635p1.html?RSSwh...4900&RSSid=878635%5B
http://www.gamepro.com/news.cfm?article_id=188988
http://play.tm/story/18525


Holy crap! What does this mean for the future of Tecmo and the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden franchises?

Edit: Added a few more links.

I decided not to post this and let someone else be the barer of this news.
I'm not totally surprised because I had my suspicions
here Thanks for posting it Fury. I hope him, Team Ninja, and all the rest of Tecmo the best of luck in their future endeavors.

All this means is that Itagaki will not be in charge of any future DOAs or NGs just like he has been saying in his interviews. Project Progressive and Code Chronus may or may not see the light of day. At least Code Chronus still has a chance of happening. I highly doubt that Tecmo will be abandoning these franchises. Considering how things have been going this generation it makes me wonder though...

This generation has been ,believe it or not, full of change and this is just one of those things that happens along the way. I hope the few people that post here every once in a blue moon stick around to see where this ride is headed.

Microsoft issued statement

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Lord Dorkus,

It means that we can finaly get some good games on good platforms[PS3anyone}.

Thank GOD that we are not tied to MShaft anymore.

This is the greatest news of the year.

By Mr.Itagaki... I really did like NG and your games on the original XBOX but you have turned into a biggot since getting turned on with Microsoft. Id be lying if I said I felt like things wouldnt get better with you gone... they will

Peace and Love Itagaki san...

Let me guess Microsoft loves "you" so much there putting a team together for you. Im sure all those freinds you spoke of so fondly need animators and lighting people on there teams.

I guess we'll never find out/play Code Chronus

Well the whole day has went by and I still feel the same... Tecmo needs its freedom from people like Itagaki as far as Im concerned. Things were getting stale... and Itagaki saying that the way Tecmo was conducting itself was stupid.
Hes the idiot always running his mouth..

In my minds eye, TECMO now has the world ahead of it. 2 player Ninja Gaiden. Im sure a remake and ode to Itagaki is coming in the form of PS3 games (I pray to the heavens for this).

Im sorry for the man but he was not Boss. He was a programmer and a creative thinker, not the boss.

I must say again, I am very happy that Tecmo will now work in the interest of its fans.

This fan stands with the most powerful and greatly designed system of this generation and next. SONY PLAYSTATION

BEST WISHES ITAGAKI SAN JA MATE NE

WERE STILL BEHIND YOU GUYS THAT WORK ALL DAY AT TECMO MAKING THE GAMES WE WANT TO PLAY. WE KNOW AND I PERSONALY KNOW A LOT OF PEOPLES ART AND TALENT GO INTO THE GAMES NOT JUST ITAGAKI.

LIFE GOES ON...

SHOGUN 0, please do me a favor and stop refering to your opinion as the agreement of the fanbase as a whole because personally, as a fan, I do not agree with you. I don't mean for this to sound antagonistic but you are driving me up a wall with your Pro-Sony Anti-Microsoft propoganda. I stand behind both so please try to respect that some of us are here for the love of games, not systems, and are not biased.

---------------------------

On topic...

Well I have two outlooks to this. I'm an optomistic kinda guy so I see it as a an open door for Itagaki. He can pretty much do what he wants now. He could probably open his own studio or easily get work for another but ultimately we will (provided he stays in videogame development) see completely new games that we may have never gotten a chance to see with him working for Tecmo.

But on the other hand I can also see Itagaki getting out of games having completely burned himself out. That's purely speculation on my part but you never know.

Tecmo will obviously put someone in his position and we could see new life brought to not just the DOA frachise but Ninja Gaiden as well. This new lead could completely revamp both series, which I think some could agree, would be most welcome.

This could also be a bad thing as well. We could get a couple of bad games out of this until Tecmo gets back up to speed.

Anyway you look at it everything right now is up in the air. We will all just have to wait and see at this point.

Lord Dorkus, I kinda saw it coming too. When he made the announcement that Ninja Gaiden II was his last of the series I had a feeling something was up then.

I am very sad because Mr. Itagaki left the Tecmo. He is a great professional and contributed to the creation of the best games of the industry of games.

I think Tecmo should reconsider their positions, the Tecmo loses more than a professional, it loses a legend, it loses the man that made the Tecmo respected in the world, mainly in the Ocident.

I hope that Tecmo did not lose the confidence of consumers from Microsoft and it remains on the side of Microsoft and consumers of Microsoft.

I wish much success to Team Ninja and that the team will continue making great games exclusive for Xbox 360. The Western world expects anciosamente DoA Cronus exclusive to the Xbox 360.

I suggest to friends who have other consoles that they know the Xbox 360 and buy it, because the Xbox 360 is an excellent console and there you can play the games of Team Ninja. Moreover, the Microsoft regards the rest of the world, Microsoft regards India, Brazil, China, Colombia, Chile, Mexico and all other countries, and therefore should be considered by the Americans as an example of a company and as a matter of pride for the USA. Microsoft has the respect of many countries (and Sony has not, because for it in the world exists only Japan, USA and England). If the Tecmo want to respect the rest of the world and mainly financial gain then it should remain on the side of Microsoft.

Finally wish much success to Mr. Itagaki and I hope that Microsoft invite Mr. Itagaki to work there.

Team ninja will likely carry on without him and there will be another DOA.. They're not going to give up on a franchise that profitable. However they may see this as a chance to start over with a new series of fighting games. New cast of characters, moves, story and gameplay... I just hope that the cheap AI programming (ie alpha 152 or whatever that annoying green thing is) does not carry over. Oh... and hopefully no more annoying bruce lee clones. So fear not... unless in the unlikely event that all the team ninja members resign in protest those people are talented enough to keep making games for Tecmo. Just please no more cheap AI... I can't stress that enough.

Tecmo of Japan's response.

Another response

All I can say is that I look forward to seeing what everyone involved in this position will be after the smoke clears. I certainly hope things turn out well for everyone.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Lord Dorkus,

I do apologize for the sub-tones of disdain for Microsoft. I apologize again and will refrain from these tactics on these forums.

I do hope to continually see games on the 360.
If you saw how much support I gave Tecmo over at Microsoft and how much money I have spent with Microsoft then you would understand.

But, anyways, like I said. Sorry. I hope everything turns out great for everybody.

**P.S.** why would they tone down the AI? and who is the Bruce Lee incarnation? Jan Lee? Hes one of the main characters in DOA for joves sake...

He brought back Tecmo from the dead. How the hell are you going to spin this as a good thing? So that you will get crappy ass ports of Ninja Gaiden 2 and DOA4 on PS3? How is this good? The president even wanted to port Sigma to 360, after it tanked on PS3. The biggest issue with this now, is there will be no more quality control at this company. It's been that way for 2 years now. Tecmo has just been pushing games out, not matter how good they are.

As a person that really likes all of Itagaki's games, I'm really sad that this had to happen the way it did. Whatever Team Ninja shows off next will make or break my loyalty to this developer. Man I'm ****ed, how the hell dose stuff like this happen? Thowing away your biggest name? Now Tecmo has no one that anybody cares about to be there PR mouth piece.

Companies like Square-Enix have managed to do well after key people leave and companies like Sega are a joke after key people left(at least most of their key franchise like Sonic are in shambles). Right now we have no idea what will happen to the quality of Team Ninja games after Itagaki's departure. Maybe because of his departure Team Ninja will really have to step up and put even more effort into their games or maybe Team Ninja games will be the same way they have always been which might show us exactly how important Itagaki is to Team Ninja. We don't know how a Team Ninja game will turn out without Itagaki being somewhat involved making it and it maybe years before we find out. Let's just take a wait and see approach on this.

That said, Ninja Gaiden 2 has some quality control issues that for the life of me I can't figure out why. I'm not sure who is a fault for it but it wasn't totally the best way to leave the company.

That's one of the feelings I had about his departure. We could potentially see some bad games out of Tecmo until they can get back up to speed.

Itagaki I'm sure knew he was going to leave for some time and as a result I feel that Ninja Gaiden 2 might have suffored for it. I mean at that point when you feel that the company you helped shaped steps on your toes (at least from Itagakis point of view) then you might feel betrayed as well. He probably only did enough to get the game out the door and then split having had enough.

Personally I feel the game is too easy. I beat it easily in two days within my limited schedule. The camera doesn't realy bother me like others have been saying but I'm so used to controlling it from the past three versions of the game that it's not a big deal to me. I only encountered slowdown in one part of the game and that's on the stairs where this seemingly endless stream of Ninjas come after you. You'll know it when you get there. Other than that I throughly enjoyed the game. But it does lack some refining polish that is a staple of Itagaki IMO.

I still say there was not much in the way of inovation taking place.

Judging by Ninja Gaiden 2, Itagaki was not to happy with his current platform.

You people are forgetting basic Ninja tactics.
For all we know Itagaki and the President planned this all along. Everything is a lie. Itagaki says 360 is more powerful but makes NG2 to show how much the 360 is lacking.

1 person did not pull a whole company out of the gutter. Itagaki did have lot of influence but maybe he became dillusional.

The last 2 games from him have been meet with a little critisisim. DOAX2 and NG2.

I am a diehard fan but I am not a blind follower.

tecmo working with microsoft has been a great success and i believe if tecmo continues to work with microsoft in the future they will be a greater success but it would be right without itagaki however tecmo switching over like that to ps3 is plain wrong

quote:

Originally posted by SHOGUN 0:
It means that we can finaly get some good games on good platforms[PS3anyone}.

Thank GOD that we are not tied to MShaft anymore.

This is the greatest news of the year.

By Mr.Itagaki... I really did like NG and your games on the original XBOX but you have turned into a biggot since getting turned on with Microsoft. Id be lying if I said I felt like things wouldnt get better with you gone... they will

Peace and Love Itagaki san...

Let me guess Microsoft loves "you" so much there putting a team together for you. Im sure all those freinds you spoke of so fondly need animators and lighting people on there teams.

its very wrong itagaki's boss was suppose to slap him on the back with a bonus but instead with a bunch of bs they need him. more like the doa fans need him. whatever he does i hope he continues to make more fighting games like doa.
And i guess July 1st is doomsday for the doa fans......

whew its been awhile since ive been around these forums!! lol ^^ neway itagaki made tecmo its money with doa he saved that company! how dare u guys talk about him so horridly! if we never see another doa itll be because of the people liek u that dont appreciate his creative genius! n its not like the boss guy of tecmo ever said anything to itagaki! sheesh be a m,an n if u got a prob fire itagaki!! lmao haha boss my @*&

quote:

Originally posted by sektor™:
its very wrong itagaki's boss was suppose to slap him on the back with a bonus but instead with a bunch of bs they need him. more like the doa fans need him. whatever he does i hope he continues to make more fighting games like doa.
And i guess July 1st is doomsday for the doa fans......

This and other recent bits of news will be settled in the courts. It's not really right to pick a side in this because as of now it is a he said:they said thing kind of like the whole he said:she said thing in that other court case because as of now I have seen no evidence to support either side. Since none of us were there to really know what is going on we shouldn't jump the gun by saying one side is in the wrong. Maybe everything is as it seems and maybe it isn't. Only people who work there know for sure. We should just allow things to play out.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Lord Dorkus,

Yeah, it's at a wait and see point right now with everything up in the air.

One one hand I'm really excited about seeing what new directions a new lead developer will put on DOA, Ninja Gaiden, or possibly even something new. But on the other hand with the rumors out I can only wonder if the president at Tecmo would run the existing IPs into the ground with different versions of the same game like DOA2 from what Itagaki said about having to talk him out of doing different versions of the same game on different platforms. Clearly I'm all for them developing a game, finishing it, and then moving on to something else rather than making one and then adding some new stuff and porting it to another platform. While that's neat that they added new material to the game and it's on another platform it ultimately makes the cycle from one new game in a series to another longer. What I mean by that is like going from DOA3 to Ninja Gaiden vs DOA2 to DOA2HC to DOA2LE. They would spend more time on one series of game rather than moving between the existing IPs (DOA > NG > DOAX > ??? > So on and so forth) and keeping everything fresh.