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Namco Tales Studio

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Namco Tales Studio Ltd.[a], formerly known as Wolf Team ((株)ウルフチーム, Urufu Chīmu), was a Japanese video game development company founded in 1986.[1] The company was renamed in 2003 when Telenet Japan sold part of its stake and made Namco the majority shareholder. Namco Tales Studio was originally the primary developer of the Tales RPG series, as it had been since the series' beginning. In November 2011, it was announced that the current Tales Studio would be dissolved and would merge with their publisher, Namco Bandai Games.[2][3] In February 2012, it was announced that the 80 people of the Tales team would join Bandai Namco Studios.[4]

Namco Tales Studio Ltd.
Native name
株式会社ナムコテイルズスタジオ
Kabushiki gaisha Namuko Teiruzu Sutajio
Company typeSubsidiary
IndustryVideo games
Founded1986; 38 years ago (1986)
DefunctJanuary 1, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-01-01)
FateMerged with Namco Bandai Games
HeadquartersTokyo, Japan
Key people
Eiji Kikuchi
ProductsTales series
Parent
Websitenamco-talesstudio.co.jp

History

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Originally headed by Masahiro Akishino, Wolf Team became independent from Telenet in 1987, was reintegrated in 1990 and got merged with another Telenet subsidiary called Lasersoft, then was completely absorbed in an internal restructuring at Telenet in 1993 at which point most of the staff left together with Akishino.

The remaining staff were the then-very-young programmer Yoshiharu Gotanda, designer Masaki Norimoto, director Joe Asanuma, graphic artist Yoshiaki Inagaki, sound composer Motoi Sakuraba, and sound effect designer Ryota Furuya. Wolf Team went on to create games such as Sol-Feace and Hiouden: Mamono-tachi tono Chikai, which faced weak sales. They were also notable for porting laserdisc video games to the Sega Mega-CD, including some Japan-only arcades like Time Gal and Ninja Hayate (released as Revenge of the Ninja for the Sega Mega-CD outside Japan).

For Tale Phantasia, a game concept by Gotanda, they looked for an outside publisher with a better reputation.[5] After approaching Enix, Telenet struck a contract with Namco. Namco insisted on many changes to the game, including changing the title to Tales of Phantasia. The conflict over these changes pushed the game's release from 1994 into late 1995. Most of the initial staff left during this dispute and founded tri-Ace in early 1995.

To continue the lucrative arrangement with Namco to develop the Tales series, Telenet re-staffed Wolf Team and retained some other staff, such as Motoi Sakuraba on a freelance basis. Wolf Team dedicated itself to the series, developing or co-developing nearly every game. In 2003, Namco assumed majority ownership of the company and renamed it Namco Tales Studio.

At the time of its renaming Namco owned 60% of this venture, Telenet Japan/Kazuyuki Fukushima retained 34%, and Tales series director Eiji Kikuchi received 6%. (Kikuchi, who was the head of Telenet's game development department for 10 years, left Telenet to head the new team full-time.) Effective on April 1, 2006, the then-newly merged Bandai Namco Holdings bought the remaining shares from Telenet Japan, cutting the last link to the developers' former employer and increasing its stockholding majority to 94%. In October 2007, Telenet filed for bankruptcy and closed, putting an end to the Wolf Team name. Namco later acquired the remaining shares.

Namco Tales Studios remained the primary developer of the so-called "mothership" titles of the Tales series, with the exception of Tales of Legendia and Tales of Innocence. Legendia was developed by an internal Namco development team called Team Melfes; while Innocence was developed by an independent developer, Alfa System, which also developed various spinoff games in the Tales series.

In November 2011, it was announced that the current Tales Studio would be dissolved and would merge with their publisher, Namco Bandai Games.[2][3] In February 2012, it was announced that the 80 people of the Tales team would join Bandai Namco Studios.[4]

Developed games

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Namco Tales Studio has developed games for the GameCube, PlayStation, Game Boy Advance, PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable, Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.

Game Release date Platform
Tales of Phantasia 1995 Super NES
Tales of Destiny 1997 PlayStation
Tales of Eternia 2000 PlayStation
Tales of Destiny 2 2002 PlayStation 2
Tales of Symphonia 2003 GameCube
Tales of Rebirth 2004 PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable
Tales of the Abyss 2005 PlayStation 2
Tales of Destiny Remake 2006 PlayStation 2
Tales of Destiny Director's Cut 2008 PlayStation 2
Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World 2008 Wii
Tales of Vesperia 2008 Xbox 360, PlayStation 3
Tales of Hearts 2008 Nintendo DS
Tales of Graces 2009 Wii
Keroro RPG: Kishi to Musha to Densetsu no Kaizoku[1] 2010 Nintendo DS
Tales of Phantasia: Narikiri Dungeon X 2010 PlayStation Portable
Tales of Graces F 2010 PlayStation 3
Tales of Xillia 2011 PlayStation 3

Notes: 1 Tales Studio sound staff only

For a complete list of Tales of games, see Tales (video game series).

As Wolf Team

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Notes

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  1. ^ Japanese: 株式会社ナムコ・テイルズスタジオ, Hepburn: Kabushiki gaisha Namuko Teiruzu Sutajio

References

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  1. ^ Goulter, Tom (November 21, 2011). "Tales Studio shut down by Namco Bandai". GamesRadar+. Future plc. Archived from the original on April 25, 2020. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  2. ^ a b Anoop Gantayat (November 21, 2012). "Namco Bandai Dissolving Tales Studio". Andriasang. Retrieved June 2, 2012.
  3. ^ a b Ashcraft, Brian (November 21, 2011). "Was This Inevitable? The Tales Studio Is Dead". Kotaku. G/O Media. Archived from the original on November 13, 2020. Retrieved January 19, 2021.
  4. ^ a b http://www.bandainamco.co.jp/files/E38390E383B3E38380E382A4E3838AE383A0E382B3E382B9E3.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  5. ^ Pär Villner & Fredrik Schaufelberger: "Square Enix", Level (Swedish magazine) [no; sv] 29, September 2009, pg. 44-59. (Swedish)
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