Yu Suzuki contributing to Kinect fighter

June 2, 2011 7:00PM PDT

Virtua Fighter veteran takes post at Naruto Shippuden: Kizuna Drive studio working on smartphone social games and motion-controlled brawlers.

Famed Virtua Fighter designer Yu Suzuki may be returning to the ring, but not necessarily to his signature fighting series. Tokyo-based studio Premium Agency today announced that it has secured Suzuki's services as advisor and executive producer of game development.

Suzuki, posing with his GDC Pioneer Award.

While Premium Agency didn't say specifically what projects Suzuki would be working on, the company's CEO expects he "will contribute to the development and launching of worldwide titles continuously, to cover titles of new fighting games for Xbox360 Kinect, also popular in the West, to social application games for smartphones."

The fighting genre isn't entirely new to Premium Agency; the company has previously worked on Namco Bandai's PSP brawler Naruto Shippuden: Kizuna Drive. The studio also lends its CG talents to animation and film work, and it has a growing business in social games and other applications for mobile phones.

Despite Suzuki's expertise in the fighting genre, it may be Premium's other efforts that have attracted his attention. In a career retrospective talk at this year's Game Developers Conference, Suzuki said he had formed a small startup company with a focus on what he perceived as the next big thing: networked games.

By Brendan Sinclair, Senior Editor

Brendan Sinclair has been a games journalist since 1999. His tastes are eclectic, though he has a definite affinity for games with arcade roots. He's Canadian, but has also been at home in Atlanta, Austin, Chicago, and San Francisco.

Follow Follow @BrendanSinclair

12 comments

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wyan_

Please... let's just start with a good Kinect boxing sim and leave full out martial arts games for later down the road.

LoveSack

if i can beat up some sailors, then fine....but i would prefer shenmue 3

majere613

Motion-control fighters, at least those involving the lower body, are an evolutionary dead end. There's no satisfaction in doing kicking techniques by just flicking your foot an inch off the floor, and untrained geeks trying to throw head-height roundhouse kicks is a one-way ticket to A&E, followed by Lawsuit City.

CTR360

SHENMUE3 i need

DarkReign2552

That;s nice. Shenmue 3! Nao! Screw your drive for Networked games. Farmville, Mafia Wars, Cafe World, whatever. It's all casual and non-gamer crap. I'll take the Kinect Brawler, but I still expect a Shenmue III in my lap by 2012.

X-RS

Man, prolly will get an HD port of Shenmue for kinect >.>

stomponyahead

WHERE IS SHENMUE 3 SUZUKI!? arhghghgh

Xplode_77

It had better be better than Fighter's Uncaged.

brian_13un

WOw Motion Controlled Brawlers, FTW?

thecurse0101

shenmue III

rasterror

A Yu Suzuki AM2 style Virtua Fighter or Fighting Vipers? I could only wish.

gatsbythepig

It may be a lost cause but he will stand to make a lot of money. Capitalism wins again!

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