PlatinumGames recently announced that former vice president Atsushi Inaba would be taking over as CEO of the studio, and he’s been in the headlines a fair bit since then. From speaking about the developer’s switch to live service games in the future to discussing the possibility of reviving the cancelled Scalebound, Inaba has made some interesting comments of late- and we have some more of that here.
Acquisitions have been the hot topic in the industry over the last couple of years, and with Xbox’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard and Sony’s purchase of Bungie, the debate has been more prominent than ever. Speaking recently with VGC, Inaba spoke about the topic, and citing the example of Activision, stated that it was unlikely the company wouldn’t retain its independence following the Microsoft deal’s completion. Inaba added that PlatinumGames wouldn’t be against the idea of getting acquired by someone in the future, as long as the studio was allowed to retain its creative freedom.
“The most important thing for us is to have the freedom to make the games that we want to make,” he said. “What I hear about the recent acquisitions, I don’t think Microsoft is going to start micromanaging Activision to where they take away all their freedom… I don’t think it’s going to be a relationship like that.
“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. 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.”
Of course, there’s no shortage of potential candidates for companies that might eye a studio as talented as PlatinumGames, with the likes of Microsoft, NetEase, or perhaps even Nintendo coming to mind. PlatinumGames does have ambitious plans for the coming years, from the development of a new internal engine to veering towards self-publishing, so it should be interest to see how the studio grows going forward.
