Very sad to hear. I loved Viewtiful Joe, and was looking forward to getting Okami when/if the price dropped to $20. They seemed like a really creative studio, which there can never be enough of in the game industry.Capcom Co. made a surprising announcement today regarding one of its most creative and innovative development studios. On the English page of the company's Japanese investor relations site, Capcom revealed plans to dissolve Clover Studio, the team behind the Viewtiful Joe games and most recently the critically acclaimed Okami. The dissolution is scheduled to take place at the end of the publisher's fiscal year next March. This news closely follows the releases of Okami and God Hand in North America.
"Clover Studio Co., Ltd. has met the goal of developing unique and creative original home video game software, however, in view of promoting a business strategy that concentrates management resources on a selected business to enhance the efficiency of the development power of the entire Capcom group, the dissolution of Clover Studio Co., Ltd. has been raised and passed at a Board of Directors' meeting," Capcom said in a statement.
As part of the announcement, Capcom also noted that it's revised the company's earnings forecast to reflect 400 million yen in "extraordinary losses" related to the forthcoming closure of Clover Studio.
Headed by Atsushi Inaba, Clover Studio was formed in July 2004, and while many of its games have been critically lauded and have had a hardcore following, the company has unfortunately not had much commercial success.
It's not clear what the future holds for this talented Japanese development team. However, one rumor suggests that it was actually the team that wanted to break away from Capcom. According to Chris Kohler's Game|Life blog an anonymous source indicated that Clover members have decided to form their own independent development studio. If that's the case, then at least we'll likely see more unique games from this group in the future. Whether or not they'd be published by Capcom is another matter.
Oh well...