namco-bandai-games posts

More layoffs in the game industry were made this week with VentureBeat reporting that Namco Bandai's US office will be sending as many as 90 team members their walking papers. According to the article the layoffs were due to a reorganization that combined its online and mobile phone divisions into one department. Also many jobs were lost due to Namco Bandai moving some of its internal game development from the US to its Japan offices.

The reorganization of Namco Bandai is designed in part to help create games that will run on several different platforms including the PC and browsers to expand the company's consumer base.

[Via VG247.com]

The earnings season is in full swing and the next game company to get hit with bad financial news is Namco Bandai Games. The publisher, which recent sold off its North American publishing rights to Hellgate London, has predicted it will post a loss of 31 billion yen (about $342 million) by the end of its fiscal year in March, according to a report on Kotaku.

The company has already lost about $195 million for its first nine months of its fiscal year compared to a $99.4 million profit for the same period a year ago.. In order to cut cost Namco Bandai plans to lay off 630 team members or just shy of 10 percent of its total work force, by the end of March.

US fans of the original Hellgate London will be able to play a new version of the online action-RPG very soon. Today Habitsoft has announced that it has obtained the publishing rights to the Hellgate franchise from Namco Bandai for both North America and Europe.

The original game was first developed by Flagship Studios and released in 2007 but the game had a number of issues that made it unplayable for many. Flagship shut down in 2008 and Habitsoft then bought the rights to the series. However it was unable to relaunch the game in the US and Europe due to Namco Bandai's previous publishing agreement. Now that barrier is no longer an issue and Habitsoft plans to relaunch the game in our neck of the woods in the near future. A revamped version of the game, titled Hellgate Resurrection, has already launched in Korea.

Yet another instance of publisher consolidation is about to occur. In February, Namco Bandai Games announced their intention to acquire D3Publisher and today Namco Bandai has announced it has already gotten control of 95 percent of D3Publisher's stock.

Gamesindustry.biz reports that Namco Bandai does plan to get control of the remaining 5 percent of D3Publisher, making their acquisition plans complete. The deal will include buying D3Publisher's US operations and their in-house game developer Vicious Cycle Software. That company also develops the Vicious Engine middleware product for game developers. Namco Bandai stated, ""D3Publisher operations will remain unchanged at this time. Development of our current and unannounced titles is ongoing and will move forward as planned."

Today's news of Square Enix's planned purchase of Eidos isn't the only publisher consolidation news out there today. Namco Bandai Games has announced its intention to purchase D3 Publisher, according to a statement from the Japanese arm of Namco Bandai.

Gamasutra reports that Namco Bandai already has an agreement to purchase 70 percent of D3 Publisher's shares and is now trying to get control of the other 30 percent. D3 Publisher is best known at the moment for the Puzzle Quest series and has a fairly solid North American presence, including their own in-house developer Vicious Cycle Software.

The Japanese publisher Namco Bandai is trying to let gamers here in the Western world know that they have your back. They want this so much that the company decided to launch an all new publishing label that's "....dedicated to providing cutting-edge, genre-defining games that are targeted at satiating the appetite of western gamers."

The label's name? We glad you asked. It's called (wait for it) Surge. No, not the art gallery assistant with the lemon twists in Beverly Hills Cop. He was named Serge. Big difference. Anyway the Surge brand will launch the console game Afro Samurai in late January with Namco Bandai saying, "Additional IPs currently in development and slated for 2009 will also be published under the Surge label." Now if we can get Surge to publish a Beverly Hills Cop game with Serge we can die happy.

Last week it seemed that Hellgate London, at least for its US customers, was pretty much doomed. The developer, Flagship Studios, had already shut down, and last week the game's co-publisher Namco Bandai announced that the multiplayer servers for the action-RPG would be shut down after Jan. 31.

But wait! All is not lost. A fan site called Hellforge spotted a note on the Korean Hellgate London web site which run by the game's Korean publisher HanbitSoft. We've reproduced part of that note that hints that the game could have a life beyond Jan. 31. The note comes from Redbana USA, a new San Francisco developer that seems to have been established in the last couple of months. Our quick check of our sources turned up word that some former Flagship team members are among its employees. While its not definitive, it certainly sounds hopeful.

[Via Blue's News]

As fantasy MMO fans eagerly await the official launch of Warhammer Online later this month, Namco Bandai Games is trying to steal a little of Mythic's fame with the announcement today that Warhammer Mark of Chaos: Battle March has shipped for the PC. If you are going, "What? What is this game?" you are not alone.

This RTS game, set in the same universe as Warhammer Online, is basically a stand alone expansion pack to Warhammer Mark of Chaos, a game that was released way back in November 2006. Developed by Black Hole Games, this expansion pack has a new single player campaign, new units and the new multiplayer World Domination mode. However the fact that Namco Bandai has almost ignored this game before today's press release doesn't bode well for it. So considered yourself alerted.