The famous Japanese entertainment company Toei Company, known around the world for film, anime, and more, is debuting in the gaming industry with the new brand Toei Games.
The brand will start with PC, primarily on Steam, but the press release mentions that there are plans to expand to home consoles, including Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, and Xbox.
Interestingly, the goal appears to be to create new IPs, so the initial lineup of games won’t actually use existing IPs belonging to the company, but will instead feature original stories and will be developed both by Japanese and foreign creators.
The first Toei Games title will be revealed this week, on April 24.
The press release also included a statement by CEO Fumio Yoshimura:
“Toei Company, Ltd. has launched a new game brand, “Toei Games,” and is venturing into the new field of the game business. We intend to clearly position this business as a “new pillar” alongside the fields that have been Toei’s mainstays such as movies, television, and events.
Games are an extremely global form of entertainment that continues to spread beyond language and national borders. Our group’s medium- to long-term vision, “TOEI NEW WAVE 2033,” aims to deliver the “stories” created by Toei to the entire world. We believe that our challenge in the game business, with the global market as our main battleground, is the embodiment of that vision.
Toei Games aims to create entirely new IPs from scratch, rather than simply utilizing existing IPs. We will leverage the technology and expertise we have cultivated through video production into our new game business, delivering Toei’s unique entertainment experience to players around the world.
Please look forward to Toei’s new challenge.”
Interestingly, we also heard that the Toei Games logo was created by Kairosoft, known for pixel art simulation games like Game Dev Story.
We also get an official mission statement for the studio.
“Toei Games believes in the unique “passion” of creators who love games and strive to create them—their “likes,” “what they want to make,” and “what they find fun”—and wants to be an accomplice in delivering that passion to the world. Furthermore, we hope that our customers, who empathize with and enjoy the “passion” that Toei believes in, will also become accomplices in spreading that enthusiasm.”
Of course, we’ll let you know about the studio’s first game as soon as it’s made public.
