A new face is joining PlatinumGames as it has been announced former Nintendo veteran, Takao Yamane will join the Bayonetta 3 studio under the role of its new vice president and chief business officer.
The game studio teased that the news of its recent hire will kick off a brand new era at the game company. Upcoming company changes and its future ambitions at the studio will be details and explained in an upcoming exclusive interview with Famitsu going up tomorrow which current vice president Hideki Kamiya and current CEO Atsushi Inaba will be present.
“PlatinumGames will be changing ‘significantly. A big industry fixer has joined PlatinumGames. What will become of us? PlatinumGames Reborn! Details in this week’s Famitsu,” PlstinumGames said in a tweet.
“プラチナゲームズは、「かなり」変わります。”
プラチナゲームズに業界大物フィクサーがジョイン🔥
どうなる！？新生プラチナゲームズ！😮
詳細は今週のファミ通で❗️ pic.twitter.com/QNAWtimaJv— プラチナゲームズ公式アカウント (@platinumgames_j) July 19, 2022
Before his time at the Bayonetta maker starts, Yamane worked at Nintendo for over 27 years in some high leadership positions at the company including serving as Nintendo France vice president until 2007 and Nintendo Europe Managing Director of Sales for 18 years. The reason why the former Nintendo veteran joined says he wanted “to make [Hideki Kamiya and Atsushi Inaba’s] dreams become reality.” He adds that he wants the developer to create game projects that “can be enjoyed and loved for a longer period of time.”
Now if that doesn’t sound familiar as Yamane is basically hinting at games as a service rather than the one-off action games the studio is famously known for. This line of thinking in the direction of the company follows the story from earlier this year with PlatinumGames’ company restructure, Inaba in the CEO role reportedly wanted the studio to focus on live-service titles which since then has released Babylon’s Fall. Yamane’s hiring hints PlatinumGames will continue to push into that unwanted future for fans of its past games.
