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Visions of Mana Director Ryosuke Yoshida Leaves NetEase, Joins Square Enix
posted on by Alex Mateo
Yoshida left his job at CAPCOM after 20 years in July 2020. He joined NetEase Games' Sakura Studios/Ouka Studios as a senior game designer .
Yoshida is perhaps best known for his work as designer on Devil May Cry 5, the latest installment in CAPCOM's character action game series. Yoshida also worked as a designer on Monster Hunter: Generations.
Bloomberg reported in August that Chinese game development company NetEase has laid off most of the staff at Ouka Studios (Visions of Mana) in Tokyo with intentions to shut down the studio's offices in Shibuya.
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 had "nothing to announce." A spokesperson from the company further told Bloomberg that it was seeing progress at many of the Japanese studios it has invested in, and the company was "always making necessary adjustments to reflect market conditions." Bernstein analyst Robin Zhu stated in the report that NetEase had 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 was 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 published the game, and NetEase Games' Ouka Studios developed it.
Sources: Ryosuke Yoshida's X/Twitter account, Eurogamer (Vikki Blake)
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.
