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Sony And Namco Bandai Partner In New Company
by David Jenkins
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January 24, 2007
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Sony Corp and publisher Namco Bandai have revealed that the two are to partner in forming Cellius Inc, a new company to create games for the PlayStation 3, as well as content for mobile phones and personal computers.
According to a Tokyo-based Bloomberg report, the new venture will be named Cellius Inc. (after the Cell processor), with Sony owning 51 percent of the company and Namco Bandai 49 percent. The new company is to open its doors on March 6th, although specific details of its future plans have not yet been forthcoming.
The report describes the partnership as being designed to not only help Sony’s PlayStation business but also to aid its attempts to combat Microsoft and Apple in terms of other digital home appliances, such as televisions and music players, which are increasingly including Internet functionality. The Cell processor is already planned to be used in high end television sets from Toshiba.
Since the beginning of the PlayStation era Namco, now merged with Bandai, have been a staunch ally of Sony with franchises such as Ridge Racer, Tekken and Ace Combat becoming synonymous with Sony formats.
In recent years, the Ridge Racer brand in particular has begun to appear on a wider variety of non-Sony formats, and so the joint venture may also be a way for Sony to retain some of Namco Bandai’s key titles as exclusives. However, titles to be created by the company have yet to be revealed.
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