Platinum Games has announced that they have appointed a new vice president and chief brand officer, former Nintendo licensing general manager Takao Yamane. Mr. Yamane has quite the experience under his belt for the roles, having served for seven years as the general manager of Nintendo’s licensing department, and he was also Vice President of Nintendo France. Platinum Games cities the hire as signaling a significant change for the company as they continue to work on new and better games, such as the highly-anticipated Bayonetta 3 for the Nintendo Switch, which is slated to release on October 28, 2022.
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What Will Takao Yamane Bring as Platinum Games New Vice President?
PlatinumGames teased a new era for the company through its appointment of Mr. Yamane as their new vice president and CBO. Platinum Games is set to explain the appointment in full detail during an interview with Famitsu featuring current vice president Hideki Kamiya and current CEO Atsushi Inaba. Prior to joining Platinum, Yamane served for seven years as the general manager of Nintendo’s licensing department.
The appointment of Mr. Yamane as Platinum Games’ vice president is not the first high-level staffing change the company has made this year alone, as company co-founder Atsushi Inaba stated he wanted the company to begin taking on larger, more risky game projects when he took over as CEO earlier this year.
“I think in terms of the expectations of fans in relation to linear action games like NieR and Bayonetta, we understand that we do get some respect for the action games that we’ve created, and we’re always happy to hear that. But we don’t want to be labeled as ‘the action game company’, we want to be labeled as a company that is interested in original, fun gameplay,” he said.
He continued to say he would like the company to create more games that “can be enjoyed and loved for a longer period of time” compared to games with “one-off” content like Bayonetta.
“Something like Sol Cresta isn’t this black sheep, where it’s totally different… it still feels like part of the family because at the end of the day, we feel that it’s an original, fun thing that we wanted to do. I hope that with the things that we do in the future that philosophy will become more apparent to our fans.”
The appointment of Mr. Yamane and the experience he brings to the role is supposedly a part of this plan.
