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Namco Bandai Acquires D3 Publisher

by Lukasz Balicki - March 18, 2009, 11:59 am EDT
Total comments: 10 Source: Siliconera

The acquisition of 19,990 shares of D3 will cost Namco Bandai $12.55 million, giving them controlling share of the company.

Last month, Namco Bandai made an aggressive bid to purchase D3 Publisher. Yesterday, the deal was completed when Namco Bandai purchased 19,990 shares of D3 at 62,000 yen ($628) a share, giving Namco Bandai 95% ownership of the company.

D3 Publisher is known for their Simple Series line of budget games, which includes titles such as Puzzle Quest, Onechanbara, and Earth Defense Force. Namco Bandai plans to keep releasing D3’s budget titles, although it is not currently known what will happen to D3’s North American and European subsidiaries after the buyout. Namco Bandai hopes to leverage the strengths of D3 Publisher worldwide.

Talkback

Flames_of_chaosLukasz Balicki, Staff AlumnusMarch 18, 2009

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v438/CONFUZZLED_MUNKIE/image165.png

NinGurl69 *hugglesMarch 18, 2009

Wow, so anything not named "tekken" or "soul calibur" will probably not get released outside of Japan.

TJ SpykeMarch 18, 2009

Don't be so sure, Namco Bandai has continued releasing One Piece games here in North America even though the show stopped airing years ago (and was never that popular here to begin with).

NinGurl69 *hugglesMarch 18, 2009

They're always late with localizing those games.  They suck.

TJ SpykeMarch 18, 2009

Maybe they will let D3 continue to run itself. Rockstar Games pretty much has sole control over what it does even though it is owned by Take-Two Interactive.

Flames_of_chaosLukasz Balicki, Staff AlumnusMarch 18, 2009

Quote from: TJ

Maybe they will let D3 continue to run itself. Rockstar Games pretty much has sole control over what it does even though it is owned by Take-Two Interactive.

I think Rockstar is a special case because they on a per contract basis with Take-Two, I think they recently renewed their contract. Plus I'm sure Take-Two will want to accommodate Rockstar with what they want because they are a huge profit maker.

NWR_pap64Pedro Hernandez, Contributing WriterMarch 19, 2009

Oh man this is terrible...

No wait, what games did D3 make/publish? The name is familiar, but don't know what they did.

Flames_of_chaosLukasz Balicki, Staff AlumnusMarch 19, 2009

They make budget stuff, the series I mentioned in the article and their simple series budget line of games.  They also help TOMY publish Naruto games on Nintendo platforms in North America, they also helped bring over Bangai-O spirits.

Mop it upMarch 19, 2009

This is a good enough excuse to post this:

http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j82/Mop_it_up/Bucket%20of%20Randomism/pacmanchart.png

What's Namco up to these days anyway? Wii want more Mario Baseball!

TJ SpykeMarch 19, 2009

Quote from: Flames_of_chaos

I think Rockstar is a special case because they on a per contract basis with Take-Two, I think they recently renewed their contract. Plus I'm sure Take-Two will want to accommodate Rockstar with what they want because they are a huge profit maker.

You are thinking about the Houser brothers, who founded and run Rockstar Games. Take-Two Interactive owns the studio itself and all of their games. Since Rockstar Games and specifically the Grand Theft Auto franchise is one of the few profit making studios T2 owns, I am not surprised they want to keep them happy and pretty much do their own thing.

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