Platinum claims it will ‘change significantly’ as it hires former Nintendo exec

Nintendo veteran Takao Yamane has joined the Bayonetta studio as a vice president

PlatinumGames has teased a new era for the company, as it appoints former licensing general manager and managing director of sales and planning at Nintendo, Takao Yamane, as its new vice president and CBO.

The appointment will be explained in full tomorrow in an interview with Famitsu. Current vice president Hideki Kamiya and current CEO Atsushi Inaba were also present during the interview.

Prior to joining Platinum, Yamane served for seven years as the general manager of Nintendo’s licensing department.

Prior to this, he oversaw planning and strategy as part of Nintendo of Europe. Before moving to NOE, he first spent time at Nintendo as the Vice President of Nintendo France.

Platinum has undergone several high-level staffing changes this year. After company co-founder Atsushi Inaba took over as CEO, he stated that he wants Platinum to undertake larger and riskier game projects.

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However, some players were worried when Inaba appeared to suggest a larger focus on live service games. He said he would like the company to create more games that “can be enjoyed and loved for a longer period of time”, compared to those in which players experience “one-off” content such as in Bayonetta.

In an interview with VGC, Kamiya told VGC that Platinum wants to be known as more than “just the action game company”.

“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,” he said. “But we don’t want to be labelled as ‘the action game company’, we want to be labelled as a company that is interested in original, fun gameplay.

“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.”

Nintendo finally announced the Bayonetta 3 release date last week, nearly five years after the game was originally announced. It will be released as a Switch exclusive on October 28.