Koei and Tecmo have finalized their merger, in a stock deal with value of $20 Billion Yen, or about $207 million USD. Tecmo, as you know, is being sued by Tomonobu Itagaki and some members of his team. They claim they were promised bonuses and financial compensations that were never honored. When this happened, Tecmo all but fell apart. At that point Square showed interest in the company, but in the end, Koei won the takeover war. Tecmo claims that games like DOA and Ninja Gaiden are still in their hands, so we will stay tuned to see if we can expect DOA5 and more.

As we all know, the legendary leader of Team Ninja, Tomonobu Itagaki, parted ways with Tecmo and it was not a friendly parting. The lawsuits are still flying, in fact. Well. Gamasutra sat down with the new Team Ninja leaders over at Tecmo to discuss just what the future holds. The team is still alive, it seems, and they took some time to "reformat and reorganize," and apparently decided that the Sony platform has greater potential for gaming. They also said they will be looking more and the Wii going forward. It looks like Itagaki leaving may be just what Wii and PS3 users needed. It also means that we may see another Dead or Alive, and a multi-platform release, at that. Great news.

Tecmo has announced a new game for the PS3 called Quantum Theory. It looks like a sci-fi shooter that is a cross between Gears of War and Devil May Cry? You can decide for yourself. Supposedly, this one is a Sony exclusive. Good to hear Tecmo is still around, though.

Koei and Tecmo are giving more details on their planned merger, revealing their new company will be debuting in Spring 2009. After rejecting the Square offer, Tecmo entered into talks with Koei for a merger. Last month it become official.

"In the ¥3 trillion ($28 billion) global games market, we have revenue of ¥40 billion ($377m), which begs the question of whether we can survive. We plan to make the most of this merger and move on to the next step, which may include acquisitions."

According to Gamasutra, a translated Japanese news report indicates that two of the employees suing Tecmo for overtime pay violations have settled with the company. Of course, the details were not disclosed, but Itagaki seems to still be pursuing his case.

Team Ninja, even though they are currently splintered from their lead guru Itagaki, is apparently preparing three new action games for this year's Tokyo Game Show. Yasuharu Kakihara, president of Tecmo, revealed this news while speaking at a press conference in Japan yesterday. Not many details about the games were revealed, but we suspect at least one of them is a tie-in to a previous Tecmo game (DOA: Code Cronus, Project Progressive).

The troubled Tecmo, or what is left of it right now, has rejected the overtures being made by Square, and decided to open takeover talks with Koei instead. Square maintains that the bid was a friendly offer, and that they will not attempt a hostile takeover. This means that a Koei buyout is likely. We think Koei is a much better fit for Tecmo anyway.

"Through a merger, we expect we can grow further by respecting both companies' identities and having an environment in which employees can fully exhibit their skills," said Tecmo and Koei in a statement, pointing to a choice for Tecmo which "has a higher possibility of improving corporate value."

It seems that Square is going to acquire the outstanding shares of the fledgling Tecmo. According to today's press release, Tecmo will offer its outstanding shares to Square by the end of the year. As you know, with the recent falling out of Team Ninja, Tecmo was borderline defunct as it was. Click read more for the full info.

PRESS RELEASE

London, (29th August 2008 ) – SQUARE ENIX CO., LTD. (the “Company”) announced today that the Company submitted to the board of directors of TECMO, LTD. (Securities Code: 9650, 1st Section of the TSE, “TECMO”) a proposal for basic conditions of acquisition of shares of common stock issued by TECMO (the “TECMO Shares”) through a friendly take over bit (the “TOB”) (the “Proposal”) in order to obtain consent to the TOB by the board of directors of TECMO.

As we all know, the legendary Tomonobu Itagaki, and many of his Team Ninja, recently had a falling out with Tecmo, and ended up leaving Tecmo and filing suit against many of the Tecmo CEOs. Well, Itagaki finally has decided to speak, and 1up was there. Inside a small bar, Itagaki talks about the stagnating state of Japanese gaming, how Western developers are doing things better right now, and much much more. Check it out.

Just a quick reminder, as we mentioned, July 15 will see the release of 25 new mission for Ninja Gaiden II. Apparently it is equivalent to a whole new campaign mode. The download will cost 800 MS points.