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The Chinese group NetEase has been making waves in Japan since it added the country's game creators like Goichi "Suda51" Suda and Hiroyuki Kobayashi to its ranks. A recent interview in the Weekly Famitsu magazine revealed that both creators are separately working on new games after they have established studios inside the group. [Thanks, Ryokutya!]

When Suda51 ed NetEase in 2021, he brought his Grasshopper Manufacture studio together with him. The studio has since been working on multiple games, including a remaster of Shadows of the Damned and a collaborative title with Hidetaka "Swery65" Suehiro in Hotel Barcelona. The new interview revealed that Suda51 has almost finished developing a new game, and he hopes to be able to reveal it in early 2025. He also teases that the new title will not be a clone or copy of other existing games.

Meanwhile, the ex-Capcom game producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi is separately working on a new action RPG after he established the GPTRACK50 studio inside the NetEase group in late 2022. His team is about to polish up the game's action systems. The studio is developing the new title with PC as the base platform, but it has also completed testing the game on consoles.

Besides Suda51 and Hiroyuki Kobayashi, NetEase is also hosting Nagoshi Studio, headed by the Yakuza / Like a Dragon series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi, and Studio Flare which is co-established by Toshimichi Mori of BlazBlue fame. The group-owned Ouka Studios is also working on Visions of Mana, which Square Enix will release for PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, and PC worldwide on August 29, 2024.

The post Suda51 and Hiroyuki Kobayashi Work on New Games in NetEase appeared first on Siliconera.

NetEase Games opened a new development studio in Osaka, Japan. It'll be led by former Capcom veteran producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi, who ed NetEase earlier in 2022. According to statements from NetEase and Kobayashi, the studio's focus will be on developing original IP. The company didn't make any specific project announcements [Thanks, Gematsu!].

According to the announcement, GPTRACK50 will bring together "experienced professionals" from both the game and film & television industries to develop content. NetEase also touted Kobayashi's experience in multimedia, such as his work helping produce live-action and animated Resident Evil series, manga adaptation, anime series, and more.

A message from Kobayashi praised NetEase as a "reliable business partner in developing high-quality games and entertainment projects." He vowed to build a strong team aiming to create original content that will satisfy global audiences. He said that the studio is "focused purely" on creating new content, innovative gaming experiences, and original IP. However, Kobayashi's aim is not solely to produce game IP, but "to go beyond those boundaries into live-action movies, animation, books including manga and novels, and various other forms of entertainment such as theater and events."

GPTRACK50 also debuted a brief launch video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUY8EoKUt8M

The video is light on specifics, but uses many languages' words for "play" laid over footage of global scenes.

In addition to former Yakuza series creator Toshihiro Nagoshi's Nagoshi Studio and Suda51's Yabukiri Studio, GPTRACK50 is the third new NetEase-connected outfit announced this year involving a veteran Japanese game developer. NetEase has also invested in European and North American studios, buying up Detroit Become Human studio Quantic Dream in September 2022.

The post GPTRACK50 Game Studio Opened With Hiroyuki Kobayashi appeared first on Siliconera.