News Atsushi Inaba appointed new CEO of PlatinumGames

[mazi]

Atsushi Inaba appointed new CEO of PlatinumGames

PlatinumGames has appointed a new CEO after Kenichi Sato stepped down from the position in December. Sato was the CEO of PlatinumGames from 2016-2021, but he is now an advisor on the board rather than the head of the company. Atshushi Inaba is now the studio head, and he has been with the...

nintendoeverything.com

Platinum Games has appointed a new CEO after Kenichi Sato stepped down from the position in December. Sato was the CEO of Platinum Games from 2016-2021, but he is now an advisor on the board rather than the head of the company.

Atshushi Inaba is now the studio head, and he has been with the company since its inception. Additionally, he has served as the vice president for some time now, but is now being elevated to the CEO.

A letter written by Inaba has been released alongside this announcement, and it can be read in its entirety below.

PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE

Create, and deliver.

Creating innovative forms of play.

That is the belief PlatinumGames was founded on.

That is something that will never change.

Games come in all different styles for all different kinds of people. At their nature, they are a true expression of liberty: thoughts come together freely to create an idea, to expand upon it, and then, to actually play it. The real enjoyment from games comes from the freedom given to both the creator and user – which is why I believe them to be such an amazing form of entertainment.

Approaching “fun” with complete sincerity has always been important to me. I believe every one of our staff take pride that they are entertainers, always attempting the perfect balance between play and professionalism.

Creating a new, enjoyable game starts with the creator being able to enjoy the game themselves. The creator then has to continually build on their idea until they have something that communicates that sense of fun to anyone who experiences it – that consideration of the user makes all the difference.

Our overarching goal for entering self-publishing has been unchanged since its conception: to invent something new and share it with the rest of the world – showing our sincerity towards creation every step of the way.

People speaking different languages, from different backgrounds, all brought together through a controller. Made to smile by a new type of game.

It connects us, and sets us free.

It’s a job that I’m extremely proud of.

As I move forward towards the new challenges of the future, I hope to provide more and more experiences for all our users to enjoy.

CEO/Studio Head
Atsushi Inaba

 

[Dunban]

Some things just make sense, this is one of those things.

Not gonna lie, Platinum has been all over the place from the start. So hopefully Inaba finally taking the reins will get them back on a good path.

 

[mazi]

Not gonna lie, Platinum has been all over the place from the start. So hopefully Inaba finally taking the reins will get them back on a good path.

same, i hope this change brings some focus to the studio. they have seemed all over the place for the past few years.

 

[uncleoptimus]

Honestly I thought Inaba was the CEO all along.

I consider him, along with Kamiya, the faces of the company.

 

[Dcubed]

This was an inevitablity. He was always due to take over as CEO eventually. I'm just surprised it took so long.

 

[Lord Azrael]

Didn't know Sato stepped down. But this makes complete sense

 

[TheGreatLugia]

I believe Sato became CEO in Spring 2016. Doesn't really feel like the studio has had a ton of good news since then aside from the sales success of Nier Automata and Astral Chain. It'd be nice if the studio has more consistently good news under Inaba.

 

[Linkstrikesback]

I believe Sato became CEO in Spring 2016. Doesn't really feel like the studio has had a ton of good news since then aside from the sales success of Nier Automata and Astral Chain. It'd be nice if the studio has more consistently good news under Inaba.

Wha?

Since 2016 they've cultivated an incredibly successful partnership with both Nintendo and square enix as well as published their first own games. They're launching two huge high end games this year in Babylon's fall and Bayo 3 as a result of those partnerships.

Scalebound being cancelled more than half a decade ago at this point really coloured some opinions weirdly

 

[TheGreatLugia]

Wha?

Since 2016 they've cultivated an incredibly successful partnership with both Nintendo and square enix as well as published their first own games. They're launching two huge high end games this year in Babylon's fall and Bayo 3 as a result of those partnerships.

Scalebound being cancelled more than half a decade ago at this point really coloured some opinions weirdly

I wasn't even referring to Scalebound since its cancellation didn't happen that long after Sato became CEO.

- In February 2019 it was announced that Granblue Fantasy: Relink was moving entirely inhouse to Cygames. Cygames mentioned later on that the project was essentially rebooted after the split happened, so it sounds like Platinum's work on the project was likely scrapped.

- In February 2019 it was also announced that Yusuke Hashimoto (Bayonetta 2's director) had left the company.

- I don't believe we've seen any mention of their mobile project Lost Order for years at this point. I suppose there's at least a chance the project could come back eventually like World of Demons did, though.

- The Kickstarter for The Wonderful 101: Remastered met most of its stretch goals, but iirc some of the backers didn't exactly seem to be happy with how Platinum handled communications after the backing period ended. In addition, the port itself didn't appear to sell particularly well outside of the players who initially backed it. In Japan, the Switch and PS4 versions combined had lower first week sales than the Wii U version (the Wii U version only sold about 5,000 copies in its first week). I believe the all-time peak number of concurrent players for the Steam version is about 200 people as well.

- When Babylon's Fall was first announced at E3 2018, it was given a 2019 release window. The next time it was shown off was December 2019 with no release window. Even before COVID, it seems like the game might have been experiencing development issues. Personally speaking, I'm not exactly confident in the recent showings the game has had either.

Again it's not all bad news, but I don't think it's unfair to say that Platinum's last few years have been a bit rocky.

 

[MondoMega]

Since 2016 they've cultivated an incredibly successful partnership with both Nintendo and square enix as well as published their first own games. They're launching two huge high end games this year in Babylon's fall and Bayo 3 as a result of those partnerships.

The only thing i’d consider Babylon’s Fall successful at is wasting time for both Platinum and Square Enix. It isn’t looking too hot, to say the least.

Bayonetta 3 doesn’t seem to have had the smoothest development cycle either, but clearly Nintendo have had the better time with Platinum than their collaborators since Astral Chain popped up in the meantime.

 

[Clov]

Sol Cresta will save Platinum

 

[mazi]

babyon's fall launch is not gonna be pretty. i hope both SE and platinum don't have high expectations for it.