Ninja Gaiden Lead Developer Leaves Tecmo, Sues the Company

In the biggest news of the day, Ninja Gaiden and DOA mastermind Tomonobu Itagaki has resigned from Tecmo after asserting that the company president refused to pay him a completion bonus on DOA 4 and then said slanderous things about him to several coworkers, a verbal attack which has prompted the now former Team Ninja head to file a law suit against his employers.  This news comes on the eve of Ninja Gaiden 2’s release, a choice of timing which I’m sure is intentional.

If it’s true, Tecmo should get it’s just desserts, but honestly, my biggest thought in all of this is “it was bound to happen”.  I mean, Itagaki-san never seemed like the nicest guy in the world.  On the contrary, he seemed wrapped up in his own mystique and image, as well as very full of himself.  Maybe it’s just me, but I’m not too shocked that he’s eventually butted heads with the higher ups.

Despite that, he is arguably a very talented designer or design team leader, and his profile in the game world is huge.  Rumors abound as to where he’ll land–perhaps he’ll become a full out Microsoft guy?

In the mean time, I’m plugging away as usual here in Erie, playing Mario Kart with my friends and spending most of my time solo gaming on Oblivion.  Not even Ninja Gaiden 2’s imminent release can pry my away from my 19th level female imperial spell sword with blond hair who I have appropriately named Rachel. 

Aaron (from Anyway Games) and I were talking the other night about the various advantages of playing a game on PC vs. on console, and how we often feel torn.  On PC, you usually have a strong mod community (especially for a game like Oblivion), but on console you have achievements and the guarantee that you won’t have to spend several hundred (or thousand) dollars to upgrade your rig to the latest game’s specs.

I feel this way right now about Left 4 Dead.  I had originally thought that I would naturally play it on the 360, but after the last gameplay trailers came out, it totally felt like a PC game to me.  We’ll have to see if my outdated Sony Vaio can run it–that may be the main factor–but if it can, I’ll need one of the other platform to sway me.  We shall see…

–WG