Speaking to 1UP, former members of Team Ninja confirmed that they have formed a new studio. Yoshifuru Okamoto has taken on a producer role, and Katsunori Ehara and Hiroaki Matsui are both directors. Also, multiple engineers, animators, cinematics specialists, musicians and level designers have migrated over from Team Ninja to the new studio, tentatively called Tokyo Vikings.

The former Team Ninja members, along with veterans of other companies, have been working on a new game engine over the past several months. The game will apparently be a new IP, will not be a fighting game, and will probably release on Xbox 360. Tomonobu Itagaki mentioned that he will be at E3 2009, but will not be unveiling this new game during the event.

— —

NOTE: GameDaily BIZ is about to become IndustryGamers.com. In order to receive the newsletter please sign up here.