E3 06: Yuji Naka starts own studio

Longtime Sega developer Yuji Naka is leaving the company, the publisher announced today. On June 1, he will step down as Sega's creative officer for research and development and become the CEO and president of a new development company, Prope, Ltd.

The move is part of Sega's Game Creator Independence Program, which seeks "to promote entrepreneurial business spin-offs with its internal development talent." Sega "will make a 10 percent investment in Prope, Ltd." and will have exclusive global publishing rights to all its games.

"We named our company Prope in the hopes of bringing game entertainment much closer to users, establishing closer ties between users and us, and creating near future entertainment," Naka said of the move. "Prope" is a Latin preposition which means "nearby," "beside," or "near."

Working with external developers is something Sega has been doing more frequently of late. The company has acquired external developers such as The Creative Assembly, Secret Level, and Sports Interactive in the last two years and has more recently been working with studios such as Monolith and Pseudo Interactive to publish Condemned and Full Auto, respectively.