... And for good reason, too. The company is bringing out two PS3 exclusives this year: Quantum and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Considering its third-party status, Tecmo is really risking a lot by abandoning a traditional multiplatform approach.

"Whenever I discuss this with Sony reps I always ask them: 'Please cut the price'," Tecmo's Kenji Matsubara told CVG. "Sony introduced cutting-edge technology in the PS3, that's why people in the industry accept that the PS3 cost is so high, but we'd welcome a price cut."

That's certainly a change of tone from a different third-party publisher, Activision. That company most recently made waves when it half-heartedly "threatened" to remove support for PlayStation products. In spite of the difference in approaches, it's clear that the PS3's price needs to be lowered. Not only does the customer want it, but publishers are demanding it as well.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is set to hit stores on October 1 in Japan. Once an Xbox 360 exclusive, Ninja Gaiden's PS3 return combines the 2008 Xbox 360 sequel with new features, including online co-op, two new playable characters and planned fixes to a laundry list of issues found in the original game. Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 is priced at ¥7,800 ($80 US). According to Kotaku, pre-order bonuses for the game include a "starter guide book" and download code for the original Ryu Hayabusa character costume. Better get a good stain remover, getting blood out of a Gi is hellacious.

Tecmo is prepping not one, but two PS3 exclusives. Quantum is Tecmo's take on Gears of War for the PlayStation audience. When questioned by Siliconera on why the team chose PS3 exclusivity, director Makoto Shibata said that they wanted to work on the most powerful hardware around. "The PS3 [is] the hardware with the highest specs," he said.

With Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Undead Knights also coming from Tecmo, it appears the company has shifted gears towards being a largely Sony-oriented development company. That's strange, considering the large number of high-profile Xbox-exclusive titles the company is known for: Dead or Alive and the original Ninja Gaiden games. This apparent change in platform choice isn't intentional, though. "It's not that Tecmo is shifting away from the Xbox 360. It's about timing. From the beginning this was seen as a PS3 title and it happens to be coming out at the same time as Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2."

For more details on Quantum (like DLC), read the full interview at Siliconera.

The first two iPhone games out of Tecmo have been pretty much exactly what we would expect from an early mobile Tecmo game (that wasn't an arcade port of Star Force or something) -- simple minigames with pictures of girls involved. We didn't expect both of them to be blackjack, but that's exactly what Tecmo is offering on the App Store: Rio Blackjack, in which players interact with an anime-style dealer named Rio, and Girls of DOA Blackjack: Kasumi, in which players compete with a reused character model from Dead or Alive.

Much more effort appears to have gone into the third game, Annie's Wild Shot, an adorable, cartoonish Wild West shooting game. Annie's Wild Shot features optional, clever motion controls, allowing players to swing the phone around to change camera angles.

Wild Shot is available in the App Store for 99 cents from now through July 9, when it will be bumped to its 'normal' $3.99 price. Check out some gameplay footage after the break.

My, my how things have changed. The former Xbox 360-exclusive Ninja Gaiden 2 is now the PS3-exclusive Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Is this the first game that's been able to wear the "Only On" stickers for both the PS3 and 360? Perhaps. While Sigma 2 may be an enhanced port of the original Ninja Gaiden 2, it features a number of new features that are, as the box says, "only on PlayStation."

Most exciting of the new features are the new playable characters: Ninja Gaiden's Rachel, Dead or Alive's Ayane, and Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword's Momiji. The PS3 version will also feature a new online co-op mode not found in the original that lets you and a friend take on ten different stages. Finally, the game is touting "variable AI," which allows "the gameplay [to differ] each time you appear in a level as enemies engage in a variety of different actions as they assess the situation." Whatever that means.

Tecmo's Nostalgeo no Kaze, being localized as Nostalgia by Ignition Entertainment, is a fantasy RPG set in a fictionalized version of our own world in the late 19th century. In this steampunk-inspired world, a young man named Eddy searches for legendary treasures, traveling around the world ... on his zeppelin.

During E3, we had the opportunity to speak briefly with producer Keisuke Kikuchi (best known for creating Fatal Frame) and director Naoki Morita (known for his work on Sega's Sakura Taisen series, which is finally coming to North America) about the inspiration behind the fanciful Nintendo DS RPG, and about life after the Tecmo-Koei merger.

According to what Gigazine claims to be scans from the Nikkei Corporate Quarterly (a book that provides snapshots of information about Japanese companies), the new Tecmo Koei Holdings is planning to combine IP in at least one new game.

Andriasang translated the relevant blurb: "New Games: Will release games that combine Tecmo and Koei titles. The aim is to reach fans of both." The identity (or number) of games, and the identity of the titles that Tecmo and Koei plan to merge are unknown, which means we can amuse ourselves briefly by coming up with our own, like Dead or Alive: Xtreme Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Rygar's Ambition, Dynasty Monster Ranchers, Gitaroo-Man Gaiden Sigma, and Mighty Bomb Genghis Khan.

We've checked in with the North American branches of both Koei and Tecmo in an effort to find any additional details about the plan.

[Update: Tecmo declined to comment, indicating that the US office didn't know any more than we did about this.]

Being away from Tecmo seems to have done wonders for Tomonobu Itagaki's attitude. In an E3 interview with 1UP's James Mielke, the former Team Ninja head said he was "very honored and pleased to be of service" in response to the suggestion that Ninja Blade was a close imitation of Ninja Gaiden. He admitted he was "pretty tired" of making games featuring super-unrealistic women. He even went so far as to praise Tekken 6 director Katsuhiro Harada, only hating on Tekken when pressed.

And rather than harbor hard feelings against his former Team Ninja colleagues who stayed on with Tecmo, Itagaki offered well wishes to the team and its Metroid: Other M project. He called Yoshio Sakamoto, Nintendo's producer on the game, "a veteran I really respect," and suggested that Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi "will learn a lot working with him. I hope Team Ninja works hard in making a good game." We like Nice Itagaki!

The only ire was reserved for Bayonetta. "If I made a similar game as a game I made in the company I quit," he said about Platinum's Hideki Kamiya, "people would say, 'What an idiot, can't he make anything else?' Well, that is more or less the opinion I have for, uh, that Bayo-something game."

A game filled with zombies made by Tecmo -- sounds like a recipe for success, right? Unfortunately, the demo we saw at E3 didn't inspire much confidence in the upcoming PSP exclusive. Conceptually, Undead Knights seems ripe for fun: imagine creating a zombie horde to tear apart your enemies and do your bidding. Instead, what we saw at E3 was an unpolished, uninspired brawler that doesn't take advantage of its unique premise or the PSP hardware.

After an impressive CG intro, we see a world that's ... brown. Most games nowadays have broken away from a monochromatic color scheme, but looks like Undead Knights didn't get the memo. The drab look just doesn't look very good on the PSP screen. A hulking figure takes the screen, and starts pummeling enemies with a sword. How does this invovle zombies? Well, you can go up for a finishing move, transforming your victim into a mindless zombie.

Dear Koei,

Things are great, and so far infection-free here at E3. Sure, we miss your quirky style, who wouldn't? Still, we're keeping ourselves busy readying games for the show, including Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, which ships for the PlayStation 3 this fall.

Other games we've got at our booth this year include Family Fun Football on the Wii, action game Undead Knights for the PSP, and -- oh -- did you know we were making a basketball game? It's true! We've got several downloadable titles this year, including a "contemporary retro" arcade-style basketball game called NBA Unrivaled and an action puzzler named Puzzlegeddon, both we hope to hit XBLA and PSN later this year.

Team Ninja's PS3-exclusive "art nouveau" shooter, Quantum, and the musical 2D platformer Fret Nice will also be on hand, though neither are expected to ship until sometime next year. All in all, we've got a lot of games to show off -- plus without any Dynasty Warriors games blocking our view we've got a clear shot those Ninja Gaiden models. Oo la la!

Wishing you were here,

Tecmo

Tecmo once again proves that sex sells through its latest trailer for Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2. Rachel, the buxom, barely clothed hammer-wielding warrior returns in this trailer, putting evil demons in their place during a rain storm. It's like a Sports Illustrated swimsuit shoot without the beaches and heavy breathing.

Okay, maybe some heavy breathing.

Swine Flu may be keeping Koei-Tecmo (well, really just the Koei side) from heading to E3 next month, but it won't keep the company away from North America forever. In fact, Koei-Tecmo plans to have a stronger presence in the West, shifting its focus onto more original, Western-aimed IP. "Our expansion into the Western market is the most important part of our mid-term plan," Koei CEO Kenji Matsubara told MCVUK, citing the yearly decline of the Japanese market as a major factor.

Koei's Canadian studio in Toronto will receive the bulk of the workload on these new IPs -- which means the strictly-Japanese work ethics currently at the studio will probably have to go. Hopefully though, it won't get rid of all its ethics.

Quantum Theory (or simply Quantum as it's known in these parts), won't make it in time for release this year; however, according to a Famitsu translation (via IGN), QT will be ready by 2010 in Japan.

Basically, that means English-speaking regions won't be seeing this Tecmo PS3 exclusive until late 2010 at the earliest -- 2011, at the latest. Disappointed? Don't be; there are still some other interesting action titles out this year.

During a recent interview with 1UP, ex-Tecmo employee and leather lover Tomonobu Itagaki (along with comrades Hiroaki Matsui, Katsunori Ehara, and Yoshifuru Okamoto) iterated that he is returning to gaming, and will be backed up by a brand new team on a project for a future game. Unfortunately, we won't see anything on this new game at next week's E3, although Itagaki did confirm he would be in attendance.

The new company is tentatively called "Tokyo Vikings" (how ... appropriate) and is largely comprised of ex-Team Ninja staff, including a majority of the folks who worked on Ninja Gaiden 2. Surprisingly, his new team even managed to snag some key character designers from Virtua Fighter 5.

Itagaki was overall pretty tight-lipped about the new team and its mystery project, but did confirm that it wouldn't be a fighting game, as Itagaki is sure he's hit the ceiling there with Dead or Alive 4. He wouldn't comment on whether it would be an Xbox 360 exclusive, or heading to other consoles such as the PS3, but his past affiliations with Microsoft might suggest a likely path for his future games.

Tecmo has confirmed that Tecmo Bowl for Wii was put on hold and converted into Family Fun Football. A Tecmo rep informed G4 that "given the recent trend on the Wii and its target audience," Tecmo made a "business decision" to switch the Tecmo Bowl project into a "family oriented football game." For now, Tecmo Bowl for Wii is "indefinitely on hold."

However, there is good news for Xbox 360 owners, as a Tecmo Bowl for Xbox Live Arcade is in the works for early 2010. There are currently no details on the game, but there may be some information next week at E3. Wii owners who were looking forward to Tecmo Bowl for the console may want to pick up its second-cousin thrice removed: Family Fun Football.