I see DOA going one of two routes: 1) It goes stale and dies 2) It starts to go sour (new lead creative figuring whether to continue in the same direction as Itagaki or go in a new direction, possibly Tecmo requested), then gets good again, maybe even better. Tecmo may just let it die off as well, just to piss off Itagaki. We shall see.
Itagaki's comments won't do him any favours in finding a new employer, though it wasn't likely he was going to leave Tecmo so spectacularly just to team up with a rival developer. If he does still have any friends within the business, it's probably going to be Yu Suzuki - after all, the two have been known to be close friends for years and it was the former AM2 producer sharing secrets of Virtua Fighter with Tomonobu that led to the creation of Dead Or Alive, which at the time was the closest any of Sega's rivals had come to emulating the hit series (though you could argue that Anarchy In The Nippon was a tribute game while Namco's efforts have also improved over time). Of course, he might just go it alone and watch from a distance as Tecmo flounders without the man who brought its greatest recent successes...
According to those "in the know" on these kind of things, Itagaki has already amended his lawsuit to allow a fight for full custody of Tecmo's breast physics technology so he can use this feature in his latest project, which is rumoured to also include a leather-clad, sunglasses-wearing lead character smashing their way through gothic-styled locales to the accompaniment of thrashy J-rock...
Bank of America has branches in japan? No wonder there was a period where the Japanese yen was down! J/K.
OH:OH:OH: the Seahawks should have won that game!! thanks for bringing up the terrible memories henners...
Probably make yet another ninja game with pretty graphics. Or maybe something innovative. Involving leather.
I kinda thought the same way of Hideo Kojima. He makes games based on fictional American heroes and doesn't resort to low-blows like Capcom did for Dead Rising.
Most large US banks do (not retail banking though, just the boring stuff). Morgan Stanley, JP, Citi, etc. etc.
Itagaki in SEGA... mmmmm that would be pretty cool... Suzuki+Itagaki+Nagoshi could do a pretty "cool" team... what would come from that???
While they have close links, I doubt we'll ever see a collaboration featuring Tomonobu Itagaki and Yu Suzuki, especially since the latter appears to be suffering from post-Shenmue complacency. I'd definitely be interested to see what could happen if Toshihiro Nagoshi or perhaps even Kenji Eno were to step up and assist the former Team Ninja leader in his new Tecmo-less career, though it would be difficult telling them apart in person. Actually, the Nagoshi idea may just happen - wasn't there talk recently of Team Ninja wanting to branch out into experimental racing games? In a genre where every example is so similar (other than the sub-divisions of arcade racer and simulation, perhaps), I'd love to see something truly different for once. Then again, if all we're going to get is a leather-and-J-rock take on Daytona you can count me out right away, as that's not true innovation in my opinion...
For what will happen with Itagaki: I imagine he will get a studio with Microsoft before too long. For what will happen to Tecmo: I imagine they'll port Ninja Gaiden 2 to the PS3 to spite him and then proceed to run NG and Dead or Alive into the ground.
...and immediately I imagined their secret innovation would be leather-clad cars! Sorry, leather-clad ninja cars. With breasts.
