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NEWS: Namco & Bandai Closer Now To Merger

"Activate battle mode, KOS-MOS! The Gundams are attacking!"

Meanwhile, Spike Spiegel and Mistsurugi fight to the death.

This could be so cool....

The new company will be called Bandai Namco Holdings Inc. according to news sources.

Namco Hometek is located in San Jose, while Bandai America & Bandai Games are located in shared offices in Cypress (outside Long Beach). Depending on space and leasing, there's no way to know which will close.

I'm of the opinion that Bandai will move their Bandai Games division off to San Jose to cut down on duplication (and maybe future combined efforts among programming teams). Most of Namco's distribution staff will likely either be moved down to Cypress or cut since Bandai is the logical choice for combined distribution.

The "on-topic" matter for ANN is this: I doubt Jerry Chu and Co. will see many changes. Namco has the "Tales of..." properties, but the animation rights are spread out among ADV, Geneon, and Media Blasters right now. Future works may become Bandai Visual exclusives, and we may see more games for animated properties... but nothing earth-shattering. I think, overall, the merger will be good for creative output in terms of games and anime.

tiredgamer- Namco Hometek is actually based not in San Jose, but in nearby Santa Clara.
I just hope that this results in Bandai and Namco making games for the Xbox 360, that's all. Frame City Killer from Namco looks nice, but with the Playstation consoles (1, 2, and soon 3) getting the Tekken/Soul Calibur/Xenosaga/Ace Combat/Ridge Racer love... I feel lonely... Crying or Very sad

I hereby dub this company...

BAMCO

Eh, maybe Bandai with its solid marketing can convince Namco to release Soulcalibur III on all three consoles instead of just PS2 (because of Sony handing them a nice bag of money). I mean, Soulcalibur II did sell much better on Gamecube, and Xbox sales were almost as good as PS2 sales.

I'm still hoping for the possibility of a Soulcalibur anime, which, if done right and with an actual plot, could be very cool. Maybe it could start at the beginning of the franchise (Soul Edge/Blade) and spoiler[show Sigfried's transformation into Nightmare] or expand on the relationships between the characters. Maxi and Kilik are begging for an animated telling of their backstory.

I'm sure this is, again, not exactly the place to discuss this... Laughing

The whole Namco/Sony deal over Soul Calibur III may be about Sony wanting a big title out this Xmas season. Remember that Xbox360 is coming out and it will be a slaughter if Sony doesn't push something out the door that's PS2-only and a big seller. Namco was also, apparantly, looking for a quick development cycle so they focused on the biggest of the current generation.

Namco has already said that they are working on an Xbox360 and Nintendo Revolution version of Soul Calibur III. It's my opinion this was just a ploy to capitalize that last little bit on the current generation before it's eclipsed by the next. Next generation will definitely see multi-platform Soul Calibur (and with III on the newest Nintendo and Microsoft offerings)...

My only question: when can we expect to see a Soul Calibur engine sporting Gundams? Laughing

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Forum - View topicNEWS: Namco & Bandai Closer Now To Merger

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NEWS: Namco & Bandai Closer Now To Merger