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PlatinumGames News & Updates [Update: Hideki Kamiya Leaving]

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Ishaan

Ishaan

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Takao Yamane has previously held the following posts at Nintendo:
  • General Manager, Licensing Department at Nintendo Co., Ltd.
  • Managing Director of Sales Planning & Strategy at Nintendo of Europe GmbH
  • Vice President of Nintendo France SARL
He is now VP at PlatinumGames, and Famitsu will publish an interview with the company tomorrow (July 20), regarding its future goals and ambitions.

Edit: Before we put on the tin foil hats, as a reminder, Tencent holds an estimated 30% stake in PlatinumGames. :p
 
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His Sales planning and strategy knowhow could actually be pretty useful at Platinum

I wonder if this is Tencent trying to "steal" talents from Japanese studios, btw
 
If he can make that Platinum Games stop chasing the GAAS money, he's welcome.
 
This is almost certainly about ensuring their move to self publishing. Hiring someone in charge of sales from the biggest publisher in the country is a big move.
 
Good move buy they really need the self publishing content to back it up. Even the best sales person with the best relationships will have a difficult time selling turds, especially in this current environment.
 
Ishaan said:
Edit: Before we put on the tin foil hats, as a reminder, Tencent holds an estimated 30% stake in PlatinumGames. :p
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And Bandai Namco held 100% of Monolith Soft prior to Nintendo gaining majority control in it, what's your point? LOL

But in all seriousness, it's a big get for PG.

And if they're specifically hiring a Licensing manager, that gives me a suspicion that whatever PG is making next aside from that kaijuu looking game is going to have highly marketable popular characters that can be licensed for merch. Or that's my takeaway from this, rather than being hired for the previous titles he held in and of themselves.
 
platinum doesn't have staff to do GAAS, that requires hundreds of people creating content non-stop, look at the number of problems that microsoft is having with these types of games, 343, rare, obsidian we have a lot of other examples the amazon mmo, it was successful and had no content
 
Terrell said:
And if they're specifically hiring a Licensing manager, that gives me a suspicion that whatever PG is making next aside from that kaijuu looking game is going to have highly marketable popular characters that can be licensed for merch. Or that's my takeaway from this, rather than being hired for the previous titles he held in and of themselves.
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Platinium Games are allowed to make a Star Fox game now alone?
 
Terrell said:
And Bandai Namco held 100% of Monolith Soft prior to Nintendo gaining majority control in it, what's your point? LOL
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Well, if we're actually being serious, the circumstances were very different back when Nintendo acquired Monolith Soft. The overall Namco Bandai entity (once those two companies had merged) was simply not interested in funding the kind of projects Monolith Soft wanted to make after the way Xenosaga turned out. Coincidentally, at the time, Nintendo had been on the lookout for talent to bolster its RPG production capabilities, and Monolith happened to be a good fit after having worked on the two Baten Kaitos games. Most importantly, Monolith was very open to a new home.

Platinum, by all accounts, isn't interested in being acquired...at least at the moment. They allowed Tencent to purchase 30% of their shares so that they could invest the money into their self-publishing efforts. Conversely, Tencent, which owns shares in Epic Games (40%), Activision (5%), and Ubisoft (5%) is investing in these companies partly so that it can bring more of their content back to its domestic market in China.

In the case of PG specifically, their upcoming mobile and live-service efforts were almost certainly one of the main reasons Tencent was interested to begin with, and their new Tokyo studio has been focused on hiring talent specifically along those lines. Even the hiring of Yamane is being framed as a new direction for PlatinumGames itself. Any party that's interested in outright accquiring Platinum would first need to unravel all of this. It's a lot more complex than buying Monolith Soft at the lowest point in its history, when their own parent company didn't want them.
 
i know how much they've wanted to get into self publishing but if i'm being honest i don't see any of those efforts paying off for them. their bread and butter is still going to be their contract work for nintendo/SE/etc.
 
mazi said:
i know how much they've wanted to get into self publishing but if i'm being honest i don't see any of those efforts paying off for them. their bread and butter is still going to be their contract work for nintendo/SE/etc.
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Everything is not happening until it happens.

Platinum recognizes that the entertainment world is all revolving around IPs now. They need to be able to publish to control their own made IPs. They cannot be just be devs for hire anymore, there is no way to survive solely as that unless they want to be an eternal support studio going forward.
 
Fiendslayer said:
Everything is not happening until it happens.

Platinum recognizes that the entertainment world is all revolving around IPs now. They need to be able to publish to control their own made IPs. They cannot be just be devs for hire anymore, there is no way to survive solely as that unless they want to be an eternal support studio going forward.
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Plenty of devs are doing just fine as work for hires, saying that there is no way to survive like that is false. It's all about the studios ambitions and relationships.

In general every company is gonna try to diversify and be less depender from external partners after nearly 20 years in the market. It's not a do or die situation unless they refuse to adapt.
 
Ishaan said:
It's a lot more complex than buying Monolith Soft at the lowest point in its history, when their own parent company didn't want them.
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So what you're saying is, even after the debacles/failures of Granblue Relink, the W101 re-release and Babylon's Fall, along with their continued persistence to try doing GaaS again, we've yet to see what rock bottom looks like for PG? I suppose that's fair since there does seem to be room to sink further, even though it comes with an insinuation that they'd have to hit that absolute low before the idea is entertained.
 
Terrell said:
So what you're saying is, even after the debacles/failures of Granblue Relink, the W101 re-release and Babylon's Fall, along with their continued persistence to try doing GaaS again, we've yet to see what rock bottom looks like for PG? I suppose that's fair since there does seem to be room to sink further, even though it comes with an insinuation that they'd have to hit that absolute low before the idea is entertained.
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I think the main difference/point of his post (but let's wait for Ishaan to reply, of course) is the Tencent investment
This is pretty recent and its "fruits" still need to be seen: if their next "indipendent" self-publishing initiatives will fail, I think that the situation won't be that different compared to Monolith back in the days

BUT

fact is: they probably don't want to be acquired. at the end of the day, they already were under the umbrella (!!!) of a big company, as a studio (Clover- owned by Capcom) and decided to try something different, in order to have way more freedom in terms of creativity, IPs, development. Back in the days, this was: pitch our ideas to other softco (like SEGA or Nintendo), in the past few years has been "try self-publishing"; now is "try self-publishing, but with a big company stake/fund" like Tencent
 
Aostia82 said:
I think the main difference/point of his post (but let's wait for Ishaan to reply, of course) is the Tencent investment
This is pretty recent and its "fruits" still need to be seen: if their next "indipendent" self-publishing initiatives will fail, I think that the situation won't be that different compared to Monolith back in the days

BUT

fact is: they probably don't want to be acquired. at the end of the day, they already were under the umbrella (!!!) of a big company, as a studio (Clover- owned by Capcom) and decided to try something different, in order to have way more freedom in terms of creativity, IPs, development. Back in the days, this was: pitch our ideas to other softco (like SEGA or Nintendo), in the past few years has been "try self-publishing"; now is "try self-publishing, but with a big company stake/fund" like Tencent
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Yup.
 
Joseki said:
What PG wants is a blank check from anyone to do whatever they want without having to give back anything.

Good luck finding that.
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Having interviewed Platinum a few times... Trust me, they are not that naive. It's honestly kind of silly to claim they are.
 
I wonder if this is less gaas games and more like skyrim and such. Games with a lot of content that can be played for long periods of time
 
It's not too often a Nintendo employee leaves to join another company. They usually just work until retirement.
 
Aostia82 said:
I think the main difference/point of his post (but let's wait for Ishaan to reply, of course) is the Tencent investment
This is pretty recent and its "fruits" still need to be seen: if their next "indipendent" self-publishing initiatives will fail, I think that the situation won't be that different compared to Monolith back in the days

BUT

fact is: they probably don't want to be acquired. at the end of the day, they already were under the umbrella (!!!) of a big company, as a studio (Clover- owned by Capcom) and decided to try something different, in order to have way more freedom in terms of creativity, IPs, development. Back in the days, this was: pitch our ideas to other softco (like SEGA or Nintendo), in the past few years has been "try self-publishing"; now is "try self-publishing, but with a big company stake/fund" like Tencent
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So what's the solution if they blow their chance at real independence? Go back to contract work only indefinitely? Fold up shop? Become the next Treasure? Independence doesn't mean much if you can't keep the lights on, and if they're going back to contract work, it'll be with a lot of red on their balance sheet.

Let's also be clear: their time under Capcom was 15 years ago now, most of their current employees never worked there (it's an upper management and producer issue primarily), self-publishing at their size and game scope is an all-or-nothing gamble, and they changed their tune on acquisition a fair bit from a hard "no", nearly 2 years after the investment from Tencent, perhaps to hedge their bets.
“I think there’s going to be a lot of mutual respect there and I think Activision will be able to continue doing what they do best [following the Microsoft acquisition]. That’s also what’s most important to us at the end of the day, whatever form that takes for us and our company. So I would not turn anything down, as long as our freedom was still respected.”
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ILikeFeet said:
I wonder if this is less gaas games and more like skyrim and such. Games with a lot of content that can be played for long periods of time
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The Tencent investment does not bode well for that being the case, as all their other major investments are with companies that have thick veins of recurrent spending revenue. Expect GaaS, just like the interviews they did suggested.
 
cw_sasuke said:
Plenty of devs are doing just fine as work for hires, saying that there is no way to survive like that is false. It's all about the studios ambitions and relationships.

In general every company is gonna try to diversify and be less depender from external partners after nearly 20 years in the market. It's not a do or die situation unless they refuse to adapt.
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You can believe that if you want.

What I am seeing is alot of previously "development only or developer heavy" companies, big and small, trying to build up their own IPs (with baby steps) instead of solely rely on working on other people's IP.

The ones left over are increasingly relegated to a supporting studio role in massive projects, instead of making a whole game ground up like they do in the (more profitable) past.

If they do not want to be just a supporting studio, there is no other place to go.
 
Terrell said:
So what's the solution if they blow their chance at real independence? Go back to contract work only indefinitely? Fold up shop? Become the next Treasure? Independence doesn't mean much if you can't keep the lights on, and if they're going back to contract work, it'll be with a lot of red on their balance sheet.

Let's also be clear: their time under Capcom was 15 years ago now, most of their current employees never worked there (it's an upper management and producer issue primarily), self-publishing at their size and game scope is an all-or-nothing gamble, and they changed their tune on acquisition a fair bit from a hard "no", nearly 2 years after the investment from Tencent, perhaps to hedge their bets.


The Tencent investment does not bode well for that being the case, as all their other major investments are with companies that have thick veins of recurrent spending revenue. Expect GaaS, just like the interviews they did suggested.
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Well yes, I think that if this new Tencent era wont pay off, they wouldnt decline a Nintendo acquisition

If Nintendo will be interested , lol
 
I'm lost as to why Nintendo - or any company - would purchase Platinum. Even if Bayo 3 is a massive success, they've been on a big slide for a long time.
 
Turenne said:
I'm lost as to why Nintendo - or any company - would purchase Platinum. Even if Bayo 3 is a massive success, they've been on a big slide for a long time.
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Me too, I used to have this feeling.
But actually both Nier Automata (6.5 millions sold) and Astral Chain (1.21 millions sold) are among their most succefull games ever
and I think that they have been both critically acclaimed too, confirming their ability in programming action games
 
Turenne said:
I'm lost as to why Nintendo - or any company - would purchase Platinum. Even if Bayo 3 is a massive success, they've been on a big slide for a long time.
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Platinum works under/with Nintendo have all been at the top critically wise of their genre. If they retained all Platinum employees and they were okay with being under Nintendo they could make them the Monolith Soft of action games while at the same time getting more mobile development experience and more support studios. Of course this would need a lot of ifs to both happen and be worth it for both parties which I don’t think will happen
 
So after a few minutes on Google I have come to the conclusion that buying Platinum doesn't fit their current pattern.

It seems they usually buy companies with around 100 employees. SRD had around 140, NLG had around 113, monolith had around 111 and dynamo has 100. Platinum is alot bigger with 300 employee and it's questionable if Nintendo even wants the mobile part of the company.

But we should expect expect atleats 1 more acquisition from Nintendo this year since we are getting news of their expansions every 2-3 months or acquisitions every quarter, (November 2021 news of 900 million dollar investment in expansion, February 2022 srd acquisition, April they bought land in Kyoto and now in July dynamo acquisition).
Since the dynamo deal closes in October I predict we will get some news in October or q2 investor's meeting.


As for what this hire means for platinum? Probably not much just much needed experience in leadership and potential to improve their work relationship with Nintendo, nothing game changing.
 
Interview Yamane, Kamiya, and Inaba
  • Index
    • The interview is now up on Famitsu.com. Notes below.

    Why Takao Yamane left Nintendo:

    • Yamane has left Nintendo after 27 years to become VP of Platinum
    • He had just turned 50 and wanted to take on a new challenge in life
    • As he was thinking about whether to stay at Nintendo, Inaba proposed they work together in 2021
    • Kamiya didn't know Yamane, but Inaba has known him since 2006
    • Yamane felt Platinum needed him more than Nintendo did, and so he joined up
    • Yamane adds that his Nintendo departure was peaceful


    What Yamane will do at Platinum:

    • Platinum has no experience in the publishing business and they needed someone with those qualifications
    • Yamane is now in charge of the publishing side of the business
    • Inaba and Kamiya will continue to lead the development side
    • Kamiya will now be involved with more of the company's projects as a chief game designer
    • Inaba jokes that he expects Yamane and Kamiya to butt heads frequently in the future
    • Yamane clarifies at one point that between publishing (business) and development (creative), the development side will always be prioritized
    • So, for example, if Kamiya asks for a six-month delay to something, Yamane is willing to be flexible
    • This is how Yamane was already used to operating at Nintendo, and can tell when a game needs more time


    Yamane's impression of Platinum:

    • He jokes about how the air-conditioning is set to very low and the studio is freezing cold
    • He also jokes about how Kamiya and Inaba are a lot scarier to their subordinates than he expected
    • Kamiya in particular has a tendency to be very direct and pointed when delivering feedback
    • Kamiya jokes that Inaba is no different
    • Kamiya also says that because people hold him in such high regard as an industry veteran, he tries to be as matter-of-fact as possible, and deliver his thoughts in a "flat" manner


    Project G.G. and what kind of game it is:

    • A core concept (like Unite Morph or Witch Time) is hinted at in the Project G.G. trailer
    • Project G.G. is a large-scale project that is driven by Kamiya's vision and Inaba's ambition/goals for Platinum
    • Inaba said to Kamiya that this would be the kind of game PlatinumGames would make from now on
    • As a result, Project G.G. will not simply be an all-out action game
    • Platinum's capital tie-up with Tencent is helping Project G.G. realize its ambitions
    • Project G.G. will be a self-published title, and was one of the reasons Yamane joined up
    • Yamane sees the potenial in Project G.G. and feels it is a top-notch product
    • Project G.G. will be released both physically and digitally worldwide
    • Yamane hints that we'll see more in June next year (2023) at Los Angeles
    • They haven't decided whether it will be at E3 or Summer Game Fest

    • In addition to Project G.G., Platinum is preparing another in-house IP


    PlatinumGames' development business (for other publishers):

    • On the development side of PG's business, there are "several unannounced titles"
    • Some of these have just begun, and some are in the final stages of production
    • Announcements will be made by their respective publishers whenever they're ready


    PlatinumGames' goals for expanding:

    • All of the projects referred to above are large in scale, so PG feels understaffed at the moment
    • As a result, they want to staff up to 500 employees as a short/medium-term goal
    • The ultimate long-term goal is to have over 1,000 employees
    • At the moment, Platinum is only in Osaka and Tokyo, but Inaba would like to expand to Hakata and Sapporo at some point in the future as well
    • Kamiya says Inaba has great ambitions in mind for PG and they'd definitely need 1,000 employees eventually
    • Kamiya and Inaba have meetings each week, where a lot of varying ideas are discussed or proposed
    • If Platinum had more staff, they could actually experiment with these ideas more
    • The studio is also continuing to hire for sales and marketing positions


    PG's relationship with Tencent:

    • The two companies entered a capital alliance in 2020
    • Tencent's policy is to invest in companies but not govern them
    • Tencent doesn't event comment on Platinum's games, all they do is keep the studio abreast of trends they see
     
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  • Index
    • Thanks for the write down Ishaan - appreciated. Can't go into too much details know but this all sounds very ambitious and exciting, really looking forward to the next couple years Platinum Games. Seems.like they really want to establish themselves in the publishing space and believe that they have the content to make it happen. Couldn't ask for more, Project GGs initial reception and marketing rollout will be interesting to follow next year.
     
    FROM SOFTWARE could justify going from 349 staff (May 2022) to having 500+ people after the huge success of Elden Ring & has the full support of Kadokawa to finance any expansion.

    Don't understand what PlatinumGames is doing that warrants its existing 299 staff (1st July 2022) let alone employing hundreds more. Especially when Tencent already owns Soleil that has only 115 staff (no date listed, plans to expand), is more productive with 4 announced projects (Valkyrie Elysium, Wanted: Dead, Vengeance is Mine & Project Edo) the latter its own IP.

    If anything, they should consider downsizing to focus on quality, with fewer games in development to rebuild its publisher relations & public reputation after multiple setbacks. Doesn't mean they cannot succeed, but public statements aren't enough to inspire confidence. Need to see evidence of why they are expanding with tangible sales results to be convinced it's the right decision.
     
    Sound hiring honestly. This should also help get their creative management focusing on the games and not every other aspect of a major company.

    Yamane will be able to help both with self publishing but also managing relationships with other publishers on partnered games.

    I suspect they knew they needed additional leadership but wanted someone who fitted their mold which Nintendo's culture does.

    Will be interesting to see how this impacts their future products and marketing.
     
    Lots of exciting news in this interview. Thanks @Ishaan for breaking it down.

    Yamane and the PG crew seems like an excellent match. We can probably all agree that publishing leadership is what PG really needed to get its new self-publishing initiative going, and they seem to have hired a top-notch executive for that purpose.

    From that interview we can conclude they have the following projects currently in development at the minimum:

    - Project G.G. (large-scale title)
    - Bayonetta 3 (large-scale title set to release very soon)
    - Continuous Babylon's Fall support (small-scale project)
    - New in-house IP (large-scale game)
    - Publisher-tied project 1 (large-scale game in final stages of production)
    - Publisher-tied project 2 (early in development)

    That's at minimum, since they said they have "several" publisher-tied projects so it could be any number. It's probably higher than two by the wording of it but you never know with translations from Japanese to English.

    There is most likely at least one Nintendo game in those publisher-tied projects, that is most likely Astral Chain 2 as Taura has yet to be credited in any role since then (he only supervized Nier: Replicant as he worked on the original game).

    KR_EP said:
    FROM SOFTWARE could justify going from 349 staff (May 2022) to having 500+ people after the huge success of Elden Ring & has the full support of Kadokawa to finance any expansion.

    Don't understand what PlatinumGames is doing that warrants its existing 299 staff (1st July 2022) let alone employing hundreds more. Especially when Tencent already owns Soleil that has only 115 staff (no date listed, plans to expand), is more productive with 4 announced projects (Valkyrie Elysium, Wanted: Dead, Vengeance is Mine & Project Edo) the latter its own IP.

    If anything, they should consider downsizing to focus on quality, with fewer games in development to rebuild its publisher relations & public reputation after multiple setbacks. Doesn't mean they cannot succeed, but public statements aren't enough to inspire confidence. Need to see evidence of why they are expanding with tangible sales results to be convinced it's the right decision.
    Click to expand...

    It is extremely understandable how, with at least 6 projects currently in development, they want to hire up more people. Developments of full scale games like Bayonetta 3, Project G.G. and others take up hundreds of people, and they now tackle these projects simultaneously. At a time where there are more platforms to support than ever before, 229 people is not an especially high amount. Comparing these projects with Soleil seems to misunderstand how game development works as those games have nothing in common scale, expectations and production-wise.

    The suggestion that they should downsize is ludicrous and I still fail to understand the hyperbole regarding PG you see on dedicated forums and web spaces. Following the massively successful release of Nier Automata, a PG-made title, and Astral Chain, another critically successful title, it is understandable why companies would want to partner with PG, as they provide high quality games on a relatively small budget, considering they have good ROI on not that many sales. People obsess far too much on Babylon's Fall, a low-budget game sent to die by its publisher. A better trial of what they are capable of on their own will be Project G.G.
     
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    Interesting comments about how development needs come first, and how that's the culture Yamane is used to from Nintendo. That's probably a good reason they've had such a fruitful partnership over the last decade.
     
    Yamane sounds like a good get for the studio considering their ambitions with eventually becoming a big name publisher seems to be the endgame for the company.

    Though they still have a few games in development being publish by major publishers. Astral Chain 2 seems to be a safe bet for one of them and likely one of the ones that is close to completion and I can see Nintendo revealing it early next year. Curious though if they will ever work Square again? There is no way either party is happy with how Babylon's Fall turned out, but at the same time, Nier Automata was a massive success.
     
    Wonder what this ambition mean for Nintendo and Platinum.
    If Kamiya and Platinum ambition become real they are probably gonna stop working in projects like Bayonetta and Astral Chain.

    Since platinum want their own IP, I cant see them working in big capacity in other publishers IP.
     
    Oregano said:
    It's being ported by Virtuous.
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    Thanks
    I wonder if they are actually working on Astral Chain 2 for real.
    one of the "work-for-hire" could totally be that: it was a "solid" million seller new IP in the action-genre category where Nintendo doesn't have many other better-performing titles/IP and was critically acclaimed (87 on Metacritic)
    If so, and if Astral Chain could become a "brand", I also suspect Bayonetta 3 could be the last of the Nintendo funded game of the series, unless it really blows up in sales
     
    skulkidcachi90 said:
    Wonder what this ambition mean for Nintendo and Platinum.
    If Kamiya and Platinum ambition become real they are probably gonna stop working in projects like Bayonetta and Astral Chain.

    Since platinum want their own IP, I cant see them working in big capacity in other publishers IP.
    Click to expand...
    "On the development side of PG's business, there are "several unannounced titles"
    • Some of these have just begun, and some are in the final stages of production
    • Announcements will be made by their respective publishers whenever they're ready"

    I'm reasonably certain the next Astral Chain would be one of them
     
    Aostia82 said:
    Thanks
    I wonder if they are actually working on Astral Chain 2 for real.
    one of the "work-for-hire" could totally be that: it was a "solid" million seller new IP in the action-genre category where Nintendo doesn't have many other better-performing titles/IP and was critically acclaimed (87 on Metacritic)
    If so, and if Astral Chain could become a "brand", I also suspect Bayonetta 3 could be the last of the Nintendo funded game of the series, unless it really blows up in sales
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    It would make sense to do a sequel, 2023 would also be 4 years since the release of the first game.
     
    They should invest in some indies as a publisher. They inspired a great many indie devs who could make something interesting.

    Nisa published Assault Spy for example. And the next game is a bit bigger in scope


     
    Oregano said:
    It would make sense to do a sequel, 2023 would also be 4 years since the release of the first game.
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    A sequel of NieR should come before AC2. Nier is the more popular IP, was release in 2017 and have better sales potential. I don't believe SE didn't already commissioned the sequel since.
     
    Now they just need to release great games, these years since Astral chain their pipeline has become really mediocre.
     
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