Itagaki Unleashes Ninja Fury On Tecmo

Posted by Gary Hodges at 11:13 AM Jun 03, 2008

According to a story at 1UP, the outspoken head of Tecmo's Team Ninja, Tomonobu Itagaki, has resigned. His apology to his fans:

I truly feel sorry to all the fans of the games I have made. Ninja Gaiden 2, which will launch on the 3rd of June will be the last Ninja Gaiden I will create. I will also never be able to make Dead or Alive 5. I regret the circumstances that have forced me to leave Tecmo, where I had worked for so many years, and I regret the disappointment this will cause my fans.

So what are these circumstances that led to Itagaki's departure? Money, naturally. According to him, Tecmo owes him a "completion bonus" for Dead or Alive 4, which he claims was promised and then reneged on. Confronting Tecmo's president Yoshimi Yasuda about the unpaid monies turned ugly: "[Yasuda] turned defiant, telling me 'if you are dissatisfied with the decision not to pay the bonuses, either quit the company or sue it.'"

Itagaki apparently chose option C: All of the above. He's suing Tecmo for 148 million yen, which - due to the depressed U.S. dollar - converts to about 180 gabillion cubeddollars. (Okay actually it's about 1.4 million USD.)

While it's impossible to know just yet who's actually in the wrong here, it is a shame Itagaki won't be behind any future, hypothetical Ninja Gaidens or Dead or Alives. While gamers split on whether DOA is a fighting game series with any merit, even the most diehard, slavish God of War or Devil May Cry fan has to admit Ninja Gaiden was fucking brilliant (I'll be seeing how NGII turned out in my next review).

Of course, it's unlikely Itagaki will end up out of work. Fans are predicting Microsoft - who he's been chummy with - will snap him up, but in any case he'll surely end up making games somewhere else.

Namco has got to be happy though. Not only do they get to see their biggest critic (Itagaki's public rants on Tekken are legendary) down on his luck, but with Soul Calibur IV they'll now have the "fighting games that fetishize enormous, pendulous breasts" market all to themselves.