[News] The creator of Tenchu dreams of a successor on the PS5 generationOwned since 2011 by GungHo Online Entertainment, which had already let Grasshopper Manufacture slip away to NetEase Games in 2021, Acquire was founded on December 6, 1994 and was talked about from its first game, Tenchu: Stealth Assassins, released in 1998 for PlayStation. Feudal Japan quickly became the studio's favorite setting, which followed with Way of the Samurai, Shinobido and Kamiwaza. Diversifying with titles like Akiba's Trip (for its own account) and No Heroes Allowed (for that of PlayStation), Acquire will experience its biggest recent success in 2018 with Octopath Traveler which will be followed by Octopath Traveler: Champions of the Continent in 2020 and Octopath Traveler II in 2023. The Octopath Traveler franchise represents more than 4 million games sold, recalls Kadokawa.
“ To strengthen our ability to license games as part of our business strategy, we spun off ACQUIRE Corp. a fully-fledged subsidiary. By acquiring this company, which has produced hit titles selling millions of copies, we hope to generate synergies with our existing gaming subsidiaries, strengthen our group-wide planning and development capabilities and improve our range of console games », We can read in the presentation, which also highlights the studio's experience in action and RPGs. For the record, the Tenchu and Way of the Samurai licenses already belonged to Kadokawa, one being at FromSoftware and the other at Spike Chunsoft. Octopath Traveler of course remains with Square Enix.
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Video games are today Kadokawa's 3rd largest activity after its core business of publishing (novels, manga, magazines) and video (film, animation, theater). For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2024, Kadokawa expects video game revenue of 145 million euros for an operating profit of 44 million euros. Objectives raised thanks to the greater contributions than expected from Elden Ring and Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon, without forgetting the releases of Master Detective Archives: Rain Code and Shiren the Wanderer 6 at Spike Chunsoft, the latter having just achieved the best launch of the saga with 200,000 sales in Japan.
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