Spelskaparen Tomonobu Itagaki, som låg bakom Dead or Alive och Ninja Gaiden, gick bort i oktober - blott 58 år gammal. En minnesstund tog plats där en av talarna var Yosuke Hayashi som är chef för Koei Tecmo. Han utvecklade bland annat Ninja Gaiden tillsammans med Itagaki och även om de två tappade kontakt efter att den sistnämnda lämnade Koei Tecmo så blev deras kontakt mer frekvent drygt ett år innan han gick bort.
I talet sade Hayashi följande;
"It's been a while, Itagaki-san. This is Hayashi. I never thought we'd meet like this. My encounter with Itagaki-san dates back to 2001, when I joined the company as a new graduate. I was assigned to your department as a game planner. You told me you had no work for me. That's what you told me. Two weeks after I was assigned, I really had no work, haha. At the time, I lamented my bad luck, thinking it was the worst possible encounter.
My most memorable memory with Itagaki-san was the development of Xbox Ninja Gaiden from 2003 to 2004. The development team was in complete chaos, and it seemed like the game would never be completed, haha. But you were the only one who didn't give up. The two of us spent 12 hours every night checking every adjustment to the game. Those six months are a treasured part of my game-development career.
As you all know, the title was successfully completed and then made a big leap forward afterwards. In 2008, we worked together on several titles. That was the time our paths parted ways.
På minnesstunden fanns bland annat ett flertal av Itagakis spel uppställda tillsammans med konstverk, svärd och en del av hans ikoniska kläder. På plats fanns även spelutvecklaren Katsuhiro Harada, som ligger bakom Tekken, och han delade lite bilder på sin Instagram som kan beskådas nedan.