Itagaki's departure causes Tecmo stock plummet

funny how a 10% drop looks like a 90% drop because they like to leave off the bottom of the scale

All they need is another face to step up and say "I'm the greatest Japanese developer of all time." Maybe they could even go full on Beat Crusaders style and he'll never show his face, instead wearing an old school printer representation of his face...

Has Itagaki worked on any good games?

Its the Itakagi Curse!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He cursed them!!!!

I knew he was a witch!!!! He has the look!!!

Ouch. Sucks to be them. I'm sure they'll recover though.

Not surprising. Itagaki had a hit with the Dead or Alive series, and it was a long period of time between that and Tecmo's last hit (what was it, Ninja Gaiden III on NES?). And even now, Team Ninja's games are pretty much the only ones that get much of any press. Not many people may have liked Itagaki, but there's a reason he was given his own team within Tecmo. I, for one, look forward to playing whatever project he works on next.

I hope Team Ninja moves forward without me, and hope that those who still have faith in me would join me at Microsoft Game Studios.

I wish good luck upon the Team Ninja developers.

Itagaki-san

"-san" = a formal title, something like "Mr."
"-kun" = informal title, with dual usage. It can be used either with an acquaintance to denote friendship or it can be used as an insult toward someone who expects to be considered your superior. (For example, you wouldn't end your boss's name with the "-kun" title if you value your job.)

... how do you know that drop isn't from Itagaki selling his shares..? Because drops like that don't occur all at once like that from news of someone leaving it slopes down.

A drop in stock price? watch out for EA, Tecmo...

....Its almost a 90° angle

I agree ... the graphic is terribly misleading. I think that a 10 percent drop is significant, but I'm not sure the image conveys that well.

You can rest assured that this 10% drop in share price has cost Tecmo shareholders a lot more money than paying Itagaki's bonuses.

Where you've got one unhappy game director there's the potential to have several, especially in situations where there's money involved.

To whit, Capcom lost three or four guys in quick succession last year.

You know what, now that I think about it, besides ninja gaiden, and Dead or alive, what games does tecmo actually make, that people actually know the name of, at least in countries outside japan. Monster Hunter is one, but its often doesn't take well with people, and fatal frame, which like most survival horror games "Not all", it never really sold that well in other territories if I recall correctly.


Those are the only two I can actually think about without doing any research, but its not like tecmo has lost the franchises he was associated with. Its still always bad to hear the person that was leading those games has stop.

With 30 seconds of looking at the companies history, I appearntly named a little less then half of their franchises. I could have sworn

Hmm, since 1981 to 2008 they've released less then 100 games, most of which never left japan, and almost all of them sequels, I could have sworn they made more games then that.

Like i said, they're already working with Suda 51 on Fatal Frame IV, they should move to buy out Grasshopper Manufacture, then they can get another rockstar, slightly insane dev with a good amount of Western Appeal

Practically perfect to fill Itagaki's shoes

It's a hard loss though. Tecmo's top three titles would be Ninja Gaiden, DOA, and Fatal Frame, and they just lost the driving personality behind the top two

Funny, I would've thought for what an utter loser and toolbag that moron is the stock would've gone up. Tee hee :)

Seriously that guys a complete chach.

Graph makes it look like Enron, rofl. When your stock is only at 10 dollars a share to begin with, and it loses A DOLLAR on the price....lol. Not exactly the end of the world. I'd say that they are pretty damn ripe for a buyout though *HINT* MICROSOFT GET ON THAT BEFORE EA DOES *HINT*

24,879,000 outstanding shares = $27.4M decline

Oh no, he's gone. I guarantee you nothing is going to change with the games. I can't imagine he contributed anything imaginative beyond "Hey, can we make her breasts bigger?"