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Bloomberg Report: NetEase Plans to Close Visions of Mana Developer Ouka Studios
posted on by Adriana Hazra
NetEase had hired former staff from companies such as CAPCOM, Bandai Namco, and Square Enix when establishing console-focused teams at Ouka in Shibuya in 2020.
In regards to the potential closure of Ouka Studios, NetEase stated to Bloomberg it has "nothing to announce." A spokesperson from the company further told Bloomberg that it is seeing progress at many of the Japanese studios it has invested in, and the company is "always making necessary adjustments to reflect market conditions." Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu states in the report that NetEase has begun to scrutinize its return on investments more closely, going on to speculate that "Anecdotally, the Japanese developers' desire to tightly control what can be done with their IP has sometimes been a source of friction." Zhu also stated NetEase is not planning to fully retreat from Japan.
Visions of Mana (Seiken Densetsu Visions of Mana), the latest game in the Mana/Seiken Densetsu role-playing game series, launched on Thursday for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam and Microsoft Store.
Square Enix announced in 2021 that it was developing a new game in the series for consoles.
The game series celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2021. As part of the celebrations Warner Bros. Japan produced Legend of Mana: The Teardrop Crystal (Seiken Densetsu Legend of Mana: The Teardrop Crystal in Japanese), an anime adaptation of the Legend of Mana game. The television anime premiered in October 2022.
Source: Bloomberg (Takashi Mochizuki) via IGN
Disclosure: Bandai Namco Filmworks Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings Inc., is a non-controlling, minority shareholder in Anime News Network Inc.
