Dead or Alive’s Ninja Gaiden and Tomonobu Itagaki have opened a new studio

Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive director Tomonobu Itagaki has formed a new studio – Itagaki Games – and said “it would be an honor for me” to work with Microsoft again. Itagaki shared the news on Facebook and revealed that this ad was supposed to be part of a recent Bloomberg article, but was omitted “due to its character limit.”

He explained how, in the past four years since leaving the Valhalla game studios of Devil’s Third, which he co-founded, he has taught game development to a younger generation. However, he now feels that he wants to “remake a game and has just started a business for that purpose”.

He further explained that although Itagaki Games is neither part of Koei Tecmo nor Valhalla Games Studios, he would not be against working with Microsoft again.

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“I know Microsoft is always aggressive,” Itagaki said. “If they contact me, it will be an honor for me.”

Several Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive titles under Itagaki were exclusive to Xbox, so the established relationship is already there.

Itagaki resigned from Tecmo in 2008 following the release of Ninja Gaiden 2 and filed a lawsuit against the company and its chairman Yoshimi Yasuda for unpaid bonuses.

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Adam Bankhurst is a news editor for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst and on Twitch.