Level 5 is going a leap beyond licensing Professor Layton. Akihiro Hino, President, plans on bringing Level 5 (the company) to North America.
The report comes from 4gamer, which was at the same company talk for new college graduates as Dengeki. Around the time Hino showed a slide from the luxurious Tokyo office, he announced plans to open a company in North America. This subsidiary will focus on publishing.
While Level 5 is known for games like Dark Cloud, Rogue Galaxy, and Dragon Quest VIII overseas, Level 5 also self publishes games based on their own intellectual properties in Japan. This announcement is about publishing those titles – Inazuma Eleven, The Little Battlers, Ni no Kuni: The Another World, Fantasy Life (a project with Brownie Brown), and Professor Layton. Out of those games, only Professor Layton, which is handled by Nintendo, has an outside publisher.
Level 5 has a lot of series to publish, but will they be able to breakthrough? Marvelous Interactive tried to do this, but have since reverted back to licensing in North America.
