Team Ninja producer and Ninja Gaiden series mastermind Tomonobu Itagaki quite visibly parted from his parent company Tecmo on very bad terms last month over unpaid bonuses and behind-the-back badmouthing, allegedly from president Yoshimi Yasuda himself.  However, Itagaki-san would not resign from Team Ninja before slapping Tecmo with a lawsuit for his troubles.  This in turn spurred other employees to leave and sue the company on behalf of their colleagues for "gross labour violations" and shaky accounting.

While Tecmo is imploring the media both local and foreign to not engage in distortion of the situation, the company itself promised that Team Ninja will live on even without the presence and vision of Itagaki.  Tecmo's president Yasuda provided further details with Bloomberg Japan, explaining that Team Ninja will begin making a bigger focus on the North American market with a new title that's completely unlike anything the studio has done before:  "'New game, new genre, new geographical area, new leader' are our four keywords."

Armed with such keywords, this suggests a fresh start for Team Ninja with something perhaps not already seated in their staple Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive franchises.  Then again, it would be hard to accept these franchises being sidelined for long considering their pedigree with entrenched gamers.