Namco Tales Studio

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Namco Tales Studio
Type	Public company
Founded	March 2003
Headquarters	Tokyo, Japan
Key people	Eiji Kikuchi, Kazuya Ishizuka, Tatsuro Udo, Takashi Hasegawa, Osamu Hisano
Industry	Computer and video game industry
Products	Tales series
Employees	128
Parent	Namco Bandai
Website	http://www.namco-talesstudio.co.jp/

Namco Tales Studio is a Japanese video game development team, christened in March 2003. Namco Tales Studio was originally called Wolfteam, but when their parent company Telenet Japan sold part of its stake in Wolfteam, and made Namco the majority shareholder, Namco renamed the company to help strengthen its brand. As the name would indicate, Namco Tales Studio continues to be the primary developer of the Tales RPG series, as they had been as Wolfteam since the series' beginning.

At the time of its renaming Namco owned 60% of this venture, Telenet Japan/Kazuyuki Fukushima retained 34%, and Tales series director Eiji Kikuchi received 6%. (Kikuchi, who was the head of Telenet's game development department for 10 years, left Telenet to head the new team full-time.) Effective on April 1, 2006, the then-newly merged Namco Bandai bought the remaining shares from Telenet Japan, cutting the last link to the developers' former employer and increasing its stockholding majority to 94%.

Namco Tales Studios remains the primary developer of the Tales series, with the exception of Tales of Legendia. Legendia was developed by an internal Namco development team called Team Melfes, featuring a unique battle system developed by some of the creators of the Soul Calibur series (also a Namco property), which is why it is so different from the others.

[edit] Developed games


2003	Tales of Symphonia GCN (2004 in North America and Europe)
	Tales of Phantasia GBA (2006 in North America and Europe)
2004	Tales of Symphonia PS2
	Tales of Rebirth PS2 (trademark was initially registered but not renewed in the United States)

2005	Tales of Eternia PSP (2006 in Europe)
	Tales of the Abyss PS2 (2006 in North America)
2006	Tales of Phantasia: Full Voice Edition PSP
	Tales of the Tempest NDS (sound staff only)
	Tales of Destiny PS2
2007	Tales of Destiny 2 PSP