Katamari creator parts ways with Namco Bandai

The creator of Katamari Damacy is rolling on down the road, as Namco Bandai and designer Keita Takahashi have parted ways. The news was originally reported by Play.tm and confirmed by the publisher for GameSpot. However, Namco Bandai gave no clarification on the circumstances of the parting or what implications it would have for the Katamari franchise or Takahashi's most recent project, Noby Noby Boy.

The confirmation comes less than a week after the publication of a brief yet blunt interview with Takahashi on The Setup, a blog devoted to "nerdy interviews." In that interview, Takahashi said he makes games for "the so-so company Namco Bandai Games Inc." and admitted, "I am so inefficient I only made four games in 11 years."

Takahashi has a reputation for not mincing words in public. In the wake of the original Katamari Damacy, he questioned the need for games, saying, "Children would be better off playing outside." Two years later, he confessed to being sick of the Katamari series and said he wasn't having much fun in the game industry anymore.

"I think for anyone in the world, you start to get bored of whatever you do, if you do one thing for too long, and that's one of the main reasons," Takahashi explained at the time.

It's unclear what Takahashi plans to move onto next. While at Namco Bandai, he worked on Katamari Damacy, We Love Katamari, Noby Noby Boy for the PlayStation 3, and Noby Noby Boy for iPhone and iPod Touch.