Namco Bandai

Tekken producer Katsuhiro Harada has admitted that he misses the outspoken Dead Or Alive creator Tomonobu Itagaki, who left Team Ninja last year and is now working on Devil's Third, an action-adventure for publisher THQ. "In the past, Itagaki always mentioned various things about Tekken," Harada told 1UP, a reference to a feature the site ran in 2005 in which Itagaki listed his five most-loved and most-hated games, with his hate-list entirely comprised of Tekken games More >

Katamari Amore, the latest in the Katamari Damacy series created by Keita Takahashi, will be released on the Apple App Store on September 29, publisher Namco Bandai has announced. More >

Here's a gallery of screenshots for Soul Calibur V, the Namco Bandai fighter that's due for Xbox 360 and PS3 early next year. More >

Keita Takahashi's series returns, and this Vita launch title promises a unique spin on the familiar formula: players can use the handheld's rear touch panel to stretch and flatten their Katamari to fit through small gaps. The below trailer is sadly bereft of gameplay footage, but Namco Bandai has also released a few screenshots showing the new-look Katamaris in action.

A sequel to Acquire's PlayStation 2 ninja stealth title Shinobido, first released in 2005, is in development for PlayStation Vita. Shinobido 2's Harakiri system lets the player ally with various factions, with a branching narrative dependent on said alliances. A European release has already been confirmed, with Namco Bandai to publish the game, though there's no news of a North American publisher just yet.

Street Fighter IV producer Yoshinori Ono and Tekken director Katsuhiro Harada have amused us already this year: the two took to the stage at Gamescom last month to complete a series of challenges while wearing lederhosen. In this trailer for Namco's upcoming Tekken Prime 3D Edition for 3DS, Ono seems unimpressed by Harada's claim that Prime will, unlike Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition, be playable at 60 frames per second even in 3D. Then...well, we won't spoil it.

Namco Bandai tussles with Kid Icarus for supremacy of the skies in Ace Combat 3D: Cross Rumble. Trailer below.

The publisher is doing its bit to help reverse Japan's declining birth rate, offering parents having a third child a support bonus of ¥2 million (£16,120) and those expecting a first or second child ¥200,000 (£1,612). Both male and female employees are eligible for the ¥2 million bonus provided they take a week off in the first 56 days following the child's birth, and write a "child rearing report," though there are no such conditions attached to the ¥200,000 bonus. Namco Bandai will also open a child care centre in its Shinagawa office, and is looking at doing the same in its other offices across Japan.

The joint venture, named BDNA Inc, is to focus on smartphone games, and will be 75 per cent funded by Namco Bandai, with DeNa footing the bill for the remaining 25 per cent. Shin Unozawa, CEO of Namco Bandai Games, will also be CEO of BDNA, with senior executives from both sides sitting on the board of directors. BDNA will officially open its doors on October 1.

Finnish developer Bugbear Entertainment's upcoming racer is a Ridge Racer spin-off in name and deed, with an emphasis on destruction and aggression rather than the series' trademark sweeping powerslides. Other firsts for the series include an in-world HUD, user-generated content and, astoundingly for an 18-year-old franchise, a PC release.

If launch title Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition proved that 3DS was that rarest of beasts - a handheld on which fighting games are a sound fit rather than a compromise - it was Dead Or Alive Dimensions that showed that the system might in fact be the natural future home of the 3D fighting game. It was no surprise, then, that Tekken was announced for the system at E3, and judging by this Gamescom trailer it, too, will work well on 3DS with its four-button, pad-friendly controls. A 3D copy of the CG movie Tekken Blood Vengeance is included, too, but what sells it to us is the prospect of seeing Bob's morbid obesity rendered in three dimensions.

At this week's Siggraph computer graphics festival in Vancouver an animation award was given to Namco Bandai for the opening movie to the upcoming Tekken Tag Tournament 2. The sequel to the PlayStation 2 launch title was originally set for release in Japanese arcades this summer, but was postponed following the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March and is now due this autumn. Namco Bandai is yet to confirm a console release, though Tekken Tag Tournament 2 Prologue will form part of the PS3-exclusive Tekken Hybrid collection that is due before the year is out.

Japanese publisher Namco Bandai swung to a first quarter profit on improved sales in the three months ended June 30. The company's content division - which houses its game business as well as network, visual and music content - saw revenue grow 8.1 per cent year-over-year to ¥35.6 billion (£283.4m), and posted an operating income of ¥519 million (£4.1m), versus a loss a year earlier. Net sales for the company as a whole were up 7.7 per cent to ¥88.2 billion (£702.2m), with net profit of ¥3.25 billion (£25.9m), compared to a first quarter loss a year ago. The publisher sold just shy of 3.4 million games during the period, up from 3.15 million last year. Unit sales were led by PS3 (657,000), Xbox 360 (651,000) and 3DS (622,000) games. Namco’s top three titles were all 3DS games - Japanese releases One Piece Unlimited Cruse SP and Tales Of The Abyss took the top two spots, ahead of US release Ridge Racer.

Namco has issued a statement saying that Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions' save game can in fact be deleted by holding ABXYLR on the 3DS. The clarification follows yesterday's assertion from the game's QA lead that "There is no way to erase the save from within the game itself without misusing the hardware, causing corruption." Namco has apologised for any confusion, saying that there has been a "miscommunication".

Evidently unmoved by the furore over Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D's undeletable save files - which eventually prompted Capcom's Christian Svensson to say the move would likely never be repeated again - Wired notes that Namco Bandai has done exactly the same with its upcoming Pac-Man & Galaga Dimensions. While Capcom's defence - that the move was in keeping with Mercenaries' emphasis on high scores - applies here as well, it still seems designed to kill off second-hand sales. That worked for Capcom to an extent, with several UK retailers declining to accept trade-ins and Lovefilm refusing to offer the game for rental, but it's disappointing that companies are going to such lengths to prevent players selling their games on - and missing the point that when games are traded in, it's more often than not to fund the purchase of new ones.