Itagaki in Valhalla!!!

Dead Or Alive Creator and Old Friend of DoaCentral Tomonobu Itagaki-san announces his new Studio Name and it's

Valhalla Game Studios.  

Interesting name as Valhalla in mythology is sort of a "heaven for warriors": 

Wikipedia:  
In Norse mythology, Valhalla (from Old Norse Valhöll "hall of the slain"^[1]) is a majestic, enormous hall located in Asgard, ruled over by the god Odin. Chosen by Odin, half of those that die in combat travel to Valhalla upon death, led by valkyries, while the other half go to the goddess Freyja's field Fólkvangr. In Valhalla, the dead join the masses of those who have died in combat known as Einherjar, as well as various legendary Germanic heroes and kings, as they prepare to aid Odin during the events of Ragnarök.

Let the Ancient give you some highlights.

From Spong

After a litigation process with Tecmo that ended recently, it now seems the Dead or Alive creator is ready to wax lyrical again - his new outfit is called Valhalla Game Studios, and is currently manned by 50 people. Itagaki will take a more administrative role as Chief Technical Officer, with ex-Tecmo's Satoru Kanematsu heading the team's work.

The self-proclaimed rockstar has plans to expand the studio, but said he doesn't want to have a "mega-studio" with hundreds of people. About his new game, Itagaki was coy however - "I won't say where we are right now, but I believe it will be a little bit like nothing anyone has ever seen."

From 1up.

It's been a nearly two years since Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden guru Tomonobu Itagaki left Tecmo and sued his former employer. "It's already been two years? I haven't been playing around or anything," he said in an interview printed in this week's edition of Famitsu magazine. "I've been working on new game concepts, ....

where he's running the development department and handling game design. The studio is being run by Satoshi Kanematsu, Itagaki's ex-comrade at Tecmo and the guy behind franchises like Monster Hunter and Rygar....

50 people working for two years can produce something better than 100 people working for one year...

For Itagaki, leaving Tecmo and joining Kanematsu at Valhalla all comes down to creative freedom...but once money enters the picture, you start neglecting the things that're most important and the equation winds up unsolvable. My friends and I went independent because we were wasting our time wrangling with issues like that." ...

One thing's for sure, though: It's not going to be another fighting game. "I already made Dead or Alive, the best fighting game in the world, in my last company," the ever-modest Itagaki commented. "Trying to compete against my own daughter wouldn't be worth the fight. Fighting games are kind of at another dead end right now, but you could say the genre would've died ages ago if DOA wasn't around. We saw ourselves as a counterbalance to the fighting-game norm back then, and without that sort of presence in the genre, it's just going to keep shrinking in size. Someone needs to step up and change things."

 "Dead or Alive 3 was the best game I made saleswise -- it did two million copies," he said. "For this game, I'd like to at least double that and get four million people to play it. You have games selling 10 million these days, after all, so I don't think throwing out the four-million figure's that outrageous."
 

Should be interesting to watch for Itagaki's next burst of gaming inspirations. 

DISCUSS

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Dahlsim "The Ancient of Gaming"