{"id":37979,"date":"2024-10-07T13:18:05","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T04:18:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/?p=37979"},"modified":"2024-10-07T14:42:58","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T05:42:58","slug":"former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/","title":{"rendered":"(Update) Former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki\u2019s game studio Itagaki Games quietly shuts down\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Update (October 7, 2024 14:40 JST):<\/strong> While Itagaki Games LLC, which Tomonobu Itagaki founded in 2021, has been dissolved as initially reported, another company owned by Itagaki (Itagaki Productions) has been renamed to Itagaki Games Co., Ltd. This implies that the business has been consolidated, rather than shut down (source: <a href=\"https:\/\/gamebiz.jp\/news\/393663\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Gamebiz<\/a>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Itagaki Games has shut down, according to a notice published via <a href=\"https:\/\/kanpou.npb.go.jp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Japan\u2019s government gazette<\/a> on October 7.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The studio was originally established in 2021 by Tomonobu Itagaki, the former leader of Koei Tecmo\u2019s Team Ninja. Itagaki left Team Ninja in 2008, after working on the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive series.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Following his departure from Koei Tecmo, Itagaki originally joined Vallhala Game Studios together with Team Ninja\u2019s Yoshiki Okamoto. He stayed there until 2017, when he stepped down from his position as CEO for personal reasons. Valhalla Game Studios went on to get merged with Soleil in December 2021.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After leaving Valhalla Game Studios, Itagaki <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/tomonobu.itagaki\/posts\/2739978682932899\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">announced<\/a> the establishment of Itagaki Games in January 2021. At the time of its establishment, the company announced that it would develop new IPs for the PS5\/Xbox Series X|S and PC. However, it seems that Itagaki Games has been quietly dissolved without ever having made a game announcement.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tomonobu Itagaki&#8217;s game studio Itagaki Games has shut down silently four years after its establishment, having made no game announcements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":37981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_gspb_post_css":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-37979","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-japan-related-news"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>(Update) Former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki\u2019s game studio Itagaki Games quietly shuts down\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Tomonobu Itagaki&#039;s game studio Itagaki Games has shut down silently four years after its establishment, having made no game announcements.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"(Update) Former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki\u2019s game studio Itagaki Games quietly shuts down\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Tomonobu Itagaki&#039;s game studio Itagaki Games has shut down silently four years after its establishment, having made no game announcements.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"AUTOMATON WEST\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-10-07T04:18:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-10-07T05:42:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ninjagaiden-20241007-313466-header.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@AUTOMATON_ENG\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Amber V\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"(Update) Former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki\u2019s game studio Itagaki Games quietly shuts down\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","description":"Tomonobu Itagaki's game studio Itagaki Games has shut down silently four years after its establishment, having made no game announcements.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"(Update) Former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki\u2019s game studio Itagaki Games quietly shuts down\u00a0 - AUTOMATON WEST","og_description":"Tomonobu Itagaki's game studio Itagaki Games has shut down silently four years after its establishment, having made no game announcements.","og_url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/","og_site_name":"AUTOMATON WEST","article_published_time":"2024-10-07T04:18:05+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-10-07T05:42:58+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1280,"height":720,"url":"http:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ninjagaiden-20241007-313466-header.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Amber V","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_site":"@AUTOMATON_ENG","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Amber V","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/"},"author":{"name":"Amber V","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#\/schema\/person\/fdc6517a00e35b6917ffdb02e8b574d9"},"headline":"(Update) Former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki\u2019s game studio Itagaki Games quietly shuts down\u00a0","datePublished":"2024-10-07T04:18:05+00:00","dateModified":"2024-10-07T05:42:58+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/"},"wordCount":219,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/ninjagaiden-20241007-313466-header.jpg","keywords":["News (Japan-related)"],"articleSection":["News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/","url":"https:\/\/automaton-media.com\/en\/news\/former-team-ninja-leader-tomonobu-itagakis-game-studio-itagaki-games-quietly-shuts-down\/","name":"(Update) Former Team Ninja leader Tomonobu Itagaki\u2019s game studio Itagaki Games quietly shuts down\u00a0 - 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