When Tomy started publishing Naruto games in North America they partnered with D3 Publisher for sales and distribution. Starting with Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Council 4 Tomy is taking care of everything.
Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Council 4 is Tomy’s first game with the grown up Naruto characters. This 2D side scroller covers the Rescue Gaara arc which means players can hit Deidara with a Rasengan and smack Neji with Sakura’s super strength in the four player wireless battle mode.
“Since launching in 2005, our long term strategy was always to eventually manage our own sales and distribution, and the expansion of our consumer software operations in 2008 was done with 2009 Naruto launches in mind,” a representative from Tomy explains. “Naruto Shippuden: Ninja Council 4 is the first Naruto game that Tomy Corporation is launching as a vertical games publisher.”
Last year Tomy published Penny Racers Party and Lovely Lisa, two games from Japan on their own. Tomy will independently publish Pangya: Fantasy Golf and from the sound of that quote more Naruto games this year. We have an idea of what those could be…
Sounds like Tomy is going to be a bigger presence in the future too which is a good sign for their other games in development like Toshinden and, perhaps, even their Hitman Reborn games.
