It’s been years since we’ve last heard from Itagaki and we’re glad that he’s becoming active once again in the gaming community. The last game that he produced before going incognito was a Wii U exclusive called Devil’s Third in 2015.
Last 2008, he also filed a complaint against Tecmo for unpaid completion bonuses before moving to Valhalla Games to work as a consultant.
However, the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden creator is now ready to step back into the gaming realm and he posted an off-cuts Bloomberg article about his interview via his Facebook profile as a late Christmas gift. The reason why the article wasn’t posted was due to its character limit.
Valhalla Game Studios has also released a statement about Itagaki’s resignation from his position to focus on contributing more to the gaming industry.
Taking A Trip Back Memory Lane
The interview starts off with his relationship with Xbox creator Seamus Blackley. They talked about the initial plans for creating the first Xbox.
He followed up that Dead or Alive 3 was worth the risk because he trusted such a passionate guy and he clearly enjoyed working with Xbox throughout the years. Seamus even shared some confidential Halo gameplay back when it was still in development.
Itagaki Welcomes Microsoft With Open Arms
For the past four years since his hiatus in the gaming industry, Itagaki has been teaching to foster juniors but now he feels like he wants to make a game again.
As for Blackley, it looks like he hasn’t reacted yet on Twitter regarding the news yet since he’s still enjoying his baking experiments.
I use weight to measure for baking, and that’s important for success. Here’s what I used today:
1kg flour
690g water
20g salt
150g “Buckinghamshire” yeast culture
5g French cake yeastThis gave five 390g baguettes and a little spare dough for the next batch. 1/3 https://t.co/EMixemq7Aj pic.twitter.com/wVTjSyujAB
— Seamus Blackley (@SeamusBlackley) January 18, 2021
Given Itagaki’s history with Microsoft, it looks like they had a lot of good memories especially with Dead or Alive hitting record sales. As he said at the end of the interview in his Facebook post: “I know Microsoft is still aggressive. If they reach out to me, it will be an honor for me.”
