News details on Lost Odyssey dev studio

TOKYO--In a press conference held here just one week before the Electronic Entertainment Expo, Hironobu Sakaguchi revealed ties to a new development studio, Feelplus. Details on the new studio, however, remained pretty much a mystery--until today.

Feelplus is currently at work on Sakaguchi's Xbox 360 role-playing game, Lost Odyssey. A domain registration check on the studio's recently launched Web site reveals that the Mistwalker-owned studio is a fully owned subsidiary of Cavia, the game maker best known for the Drakengard action game series published by Square Enix.

However, Feelplus has ties not only to Square Enix, but also to Sega, as well as a second, well-known Japanese Xbox game developer, Artoon.

Feelplus' president is Masamichi Someno, the former president of Square Enix subsidiary Digicube. The studio had 48 employees as of its launch date of March 28, 2005, and operates out of the same Tokyo office as Cavia.

Since Feelplus is a subsidiary of Cavia, that also means it's part of the same Nakayama Renaissance group (which owns Cavia). Another Nakayama company is Artoon, a development studio known for its Blinx Xbox franchise.

The Nakayama Renaissance group is a holding company established by former Sega president Hayao Nakayama.