This has been a rough year for the video game industry as a whole with thousands of jobs lost and projects abandoned, which now includes one of the largest developers and publishers in Japan.
Bandai Namco has reportedly canceled multiple titles amid financial troubles, including one working with Nintendo, and potentially cutting hundreds of jobs at the studio.
While there were no specific game titles given, the report from Bloomberg claims Bandai Namco shut down projects involving One Piece and Naruto.
On top of that, there was also said to be a game commissioned by Nintendo canceled as well after the companies have previously worked together on Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Pokkén Tournament, New Pokémon Snap and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe.
It’s not stated if these were console or mobile related projects, but hopefully we won’t learn that Luffy and / or Naruto were supposed to receive a traditional fighting game, which is no longer happening.
This report also claims Bamco has moved around 200 of its 1,300 development staff to “expulsion rooms” where employees are pressured to resign while being given no work tasks or projects.
Expulsion rooms are used as a tactic by some Japanese companies to cut staff due to the country’s stricter labor laws making it difficult to lay off workers.
Bandai Namco denies these claims and responded they need time to assign developers to new projects and are not pressuring people to leave.
This does raise some new questions as well about what the future support for Tekken 8 is going to look like after that game has also faced its own recent controversies.
User reviews for Tekken 8 have dropped to “Mostly Negative” following growing frustrations regarding its monetization methods including the handling of its new stage.
Bamco also received pushback from the community for disqualifying a young player from a Tekken World Tour event who made top 8 because players from China weren’t technically allowed to participate in the circuit.
The company attempted to amend the situation after by apologizing, expanding their rules and inviting the player to the TWT Last Chance Qualifier.
Longtime Tekken Director Katsuhiro Harada has also made statements alluding to potential disconnects between the development and publishing sides of Bandai Namco that is impacting how the game is marketed and sold — which he says he is trying to address.
Although it appears his apology has now been deleted from social media.
Given that Tekken 8 sold 2 million copies in its first month and continued to chart for multiple months after, the game is likely being regarded as a success at Bamco and is in no immediate danger of facing major cutbacks.
If this situation of financial troubles continues, however, there could come a time when the Tekken Project team does take some hits, which may impact support down the line.
As for Super Smash Bros., we would bet good money that is not the axed Nintendo project considering Ultimate was an unimaginable success having sold almost 35 million copies to date.
There have been signs that a new Smash project may be in the works, including an update to Ultimate, and with their experience / relationship, Namco would likely be first in line to help develop a new entry too.
It does make us wonder, though, what that Nintendo project was.
Although they’ve had 21 billion yen ($141 million USD) in writedowns to cut costs this year, Bandai Namco is making some serious cash right now.
Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero managed to sell 3 million copies worldwide in just 24 hours and break the concurrent player record for any premium fighter on PC.
The fighting game portions of Bandai Namco should fare okay for the time being, but it’s something we’ll continue to monitor over the following financial quarters to see what the future is looking like at the studio.