Okubo Motohiro has moved from Bandai Namco to an unnamed company in Shibuya.

Okubo announced on Twitter that after an extended period, he is leaving his former workplace behind: “It’s been a while, but I will leave Bandai Namco Entertainment on August 31. From tomorrow, I will be working at a game company located in Shibuya.” So today was his first workday at his new location (they are several hours ahead of us, so using past tense is reasonable). Okubo was the producer of Soulcalibur VI, Tekken 7, and Pac-Man 99.

“25 years ago, I joined the former Namco and met various people. I am grateful to all the people I met. Especially through Soulcalibur VI, I received enormous power from players all over the world. Thank you very much. I’d like to show the various goods I received from everyone, but there are too many! Allow me to show my nine million units cushion, which I received last week from the development team of Tekken and Soulcalibur! Once again, thank you, thank you, and thank you!” he added.

This timing caught our attention. A few days ago, we wrote about how Toshihiro Nagoshi, the Yakuza series’ creator, has been rumoured to leave SEGA and Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio behind to join a Chinese tech giant, NetEase. After a quick look, we found a studio formed by NetEase with its HQ in Shibuya. It’s called Ouka Studio, and it’s developing next-gen games, making it a potential new workplace for Okubo… but Shibuya hosts several other studios. Therefore, it’s one of many possibilities.

The Chinese expansion started kicking into a higher gear last year, and they might have pulled another developer in. Even if that isn’t the case, we wish the best of luck to Okubo in his new workplace. However, we doubt if there will be a new Soulcalibur without him, as he had to grind many gears at Bandai Namco to create SCVI. And if NetEase brings Nagoshi to Ouka Studio, we wouldn’t be surprised…

Source: Gematsu